Pretty crazy. I’ll be interested to see if this trend levels out a bit in the next few seasons.

I’m too lazy to list all 64 players from this season, but here are the players from the other two seasons:

Stephen Curry (66.9%)
Kevin Durant (63.4%)
JJ Redick (63.2%)
Hassan Whiteside (62.9%)
DeAndre Jordan (62.8%)
Enes Freedom (62.6%)
Steven Adams (62.1%)
Kawhi Leonard (61.6%)
Tristan Thompson (61.1%)
Jonas Valančiūnas (61.1%)
Dwight Howard (60.4%)
Ian Mahinmi 29 (60.3%)
Jared Dudley (60.2%)
Gorgui Dieng (60.1%)

2005-2006

Steve Nash (63.2%)
Josh Childress (62.6%)
Chris Wilcox (60.5%)
Kevin Martin (60.4%)
Eddy Curry (60.4%)
Richard Jefferson (60.3%)
Chauncey Billups (60.2%)

Psychological_Wear_7 | OKC

24 | 3 hours ago

That’s what happens when you swap out long 2s for 3s

ForneauCosmique | Spurs

10 | 2 hours ago

And take away defenders ability to defend. Can’t touch a player without it being a foul so defenders are essentially forced to not touch a ballhandler attacking the basket, which will force defenders to back off a little while guarding which gives shooters more space to shoot. League needs to allow defenders to be more physical since players are more skilled than ever before

pdmalo

8 | 2 hours ago

And the carrying. Makes everything much easier.

jackaholicus | Mavericks

2 | an hour ago

Just looking at shot diets

05-06 eFG is ~49%
25-26 eFG is ~54.5%
A world where 06 players had the 26 shot diet but at 06 percentages gets you a ~51.2% eFG

MatchAffectionate951

1 | 13 minutes ago

That’s not how things work.

The process to getting those shots isn’t the same.

Alarmed-Candidate422

1 | an hour ago

Aka the SGA gameplan.

ForneauCosmique | Spurs

-1 | 33 minutes ago

I don’t blame him for what he’s doing. His job is to be great and win. I blame Silver and the refs for allowing that kind of ref baiting

Alarmed-Candidate422

1 | 30 minutes ago

Luckily in the playoffs he doesn’t get those calls. Just look at his playoff TS%. Thats why him getting MVP because of “efficiency” is so weird. He’s not efficient unless the refs bail Him out with regular season calls lol

Whoareyoutho9

1 | 7 minutes ago

And the free throws/foul baiting. Its a very flawed stat for what most people think it represents. I guess just very poorly named more than anything

closing-the-thread | Lakers

12 | 3 hours ago

That says a lot about Steve Nash

coacoanutbenjamn | Celtics

8 | 2 hours ago

He should have shot the ball more. Him and D’Antoni have talked about how if they knew then what they know now he would have been taking 20+ shots a games

Skylightt

2 | 34 minutes ago

He’d be putting up like ³⁰⁄₁₀ if he played today

Instantcoffees | Warriors

1 | 3 hours ago

Just a question not an indictment, but does FT rate factor into any of this? Maybe this has always been the case, but the last couple of years I often felt like a lot of star players can’t really miss because either they score or they get the foul and it does not count as a miss.

Mobile-Entertainer60 | Thunder

4 | 3 hours ago

Yes, that’s part of the formula.

Instantcoffees | Warriors

1 | 2 hours ago

So, I’m old and I forgot everything I ever knew about math. Would your TS percentage then be lower if you have a higher percentage of FTs, or am I reading that wrong?

pandaisunbreakable

5 | 2 hours ago

your TS% would be higher if you have more FT, if you can make most of them

Instantcoffees | Warriors

1 | 2 hours ago

Ah ok. So if a player gets a lot of whistles on their missed FG attempts, this would probably still increase their TS%? That’s what I was wondering.

Like, with most star players, I feel like their FG% is a bit inflated because they get bailed out by foul calls when they miss. The first person replying to me seemed to imply that TS% takes that into account, is that not the case then?

Latter_Reserve4657

0 | 2 hours ago

Overall absolutely. The exception would be a guy like Shaq who was bad at free throws and legitimately would have shot over 80% inside 3 feet if not for getting hacked.

If you really want to parse out the effect of getting fouled a ton on efficiency look at a players 2 pt percentage in isolation as compared to their overall efficiency. People bitch about Shai getting a ton of free throws, sometimes rightfully but also exaggerated. But his 2 point efficiency is still insane. You could take away all of his free throws and his TS% would be elite.

If you look at peak Harden that’s not the case at all, partially because he would try to draw and oversell contact on three point attempts too, and some of those shots had no chance of going in.

Instantcoffees | Warriors

1 | an hour ago

Alright, thanks! Yeah, it is not about SGA for me. I love watching the top players play, but I have the same issue with how most of them are treated by refs. Sometimes it feels like refs wait to see if a shot misses and when it does, they blow the whistle.

I started noticing it more, but I do not know if that is just me getting older and grumpier or a genuine trend.

Mobile-Entertainer60 | Thunder

2 | an hour ago

The theoretical maximum for 2 pointers is TS% of 100. For 3 pointers, it’s 150. For free throws, it’s 227. A player would have to shoot <66% on free throws to make shooting free throws less advantageous for TS% than making every single 3 they take.

Instantcoffees | Warriors

1 | an hour ago

Appreciate it.

Latter_Reserve4657

1 | 2 hours ago

Typically your TS% would be higher with more free throws. Unless you’re just terrible at free throws.

Even a good a mid tier free throw shooter hitting 75% of their attempts will have higher overall efficiency at the line than an elite tier 45% three point shooter has on their threes.

Latter_Reserve4657

2 | 2 hours ago

Yes but actually the free throw rate has gone down, not up. But teams also shoot fewer two point shots so what you’re saying may be partially true. Regardless, it’s the increase on 3 point shots and the diminishing rate of long 2s that are mostly responsible.

jackaholicus | Mavericks

1 | an hour ago

Yeah but the 2s that teams take less of are long twos, which aren’t usually fouled too much anyway. And most of those long twos were also catch and shoot long twos.

Instantcoffees | Warriors

0 | an hour ago

I see. I just feel like too often refs wait to see if a shot goes in and then blow a late whistle when it misses, but maybe I just started noticing it more and it is not an actual new trend.

Charles-Baudelaire

1 | 2 hours ago

League TS% is high across the board. Would be interesting to see how many players have a very high rTS% compared to ¹⁰⁄₂₀ years ago like you did.

jackaholicus | Mavericks

1 | 42 minutes ago

basketball ref doesn’t have rTS but it does have TS+ (TS/lgTS)

Nash has a 118 TS+, Jokic has a 115.

But I think this is also a case of everyone catching up to the meta. The guys in the 06 list were usually ahead of their time with their shot diet. Kevin Martin and Chauncey Billups were very early Morey-ball guys.

This season, 64 players had a true shooting of 60%+. For some perspective: 10 years ago, only 14 players accomplished this. 20 years ago, only 7 players did.