2013 NBA Playoffs thread

I think the rules are the same for three pointers now as compared to 30 years ago. I agree customs are very different.

Bird shot 1,757 threes in his career and James is over 3,000. But Bird shot about 38% on threes and James 34%. So if Bird launched them at the same rate as James he would do a little better statistically on offense in comparison. And James has a career scoring average about three points a game higher. And since we are adjusting for eras James scoring average comes ina time when league wide scoring averages have declined. In the 80's a game where both teams did not score over 100 points was "low scoring" and now it is the norm.

But I think the superior ball handling and defensive skills of James are determinative. Scoring efficiency is basically a push.

 

He did leave off the Hornets. That was a team the Bulls had to get by in the playoffs a couple of times.

 

No, when Bird got even somewhat serious about it, he was over 40 percent pretty consistently. It's just that the three-pointer was a desperation throwaway for the first half of his career.

He never averaged more than 3.3 attempts in a single season, and he was typically among the league leaders. These days he would be putting up between six and eight. Last season, Ryan Anderson shot 6.9 a game and hit 38 percent. Now, maybe you think Ryan Anderson is a better shooter than Larry Bird ever was, but I guess we will have to just agree to disagree on that.

You might be right that James is the better overall player, but the offensive/scoring efficiency part is not the way to make that case.

 

I have always said that Bird is a better shooter than James. The part you ignore is that James goes to the foul line a lot more. So Larry Bird hits 40% of his threes. So he takes 30 three points and scores 36 points. James gets fouled 30 times and takes 60 foul shots. James is a 75% foul shooter. James scores 45 points. Who wins?

As I said earlier James has already shot 2,170 more free throws than Bird despite having 710 fewer career points. And statistically that drives James offensive efficiency statistically higher than Bird.

 

And I am saying that the game is so radically different now because of the three-pointer that to compare eras is like comparing home run totals from the 1970s to the steroid era.

Larry Bird was almost 23 years old by the time he played his first game where every basket didn't count for two points. He was 28 years old before it became a real part of the game. Don't you think he would have shot it a little better if he had grown up shooting 24-footers?

 

Larry Bird shot 40.6% on his threes his rookie year so I think he had figured out how to shoot them by the time he hit the NBA.

But this is the way I do my statistical analysis. I have invented a statistic called scoring opportunities. Scoring opportunities is the number of field goal attempts plus the number of free throws divided by two. Then I divide scoring opportunities by total points.


Bird
Career Points 21,791
Scoring Opportunities 19,569.5
Average Points per
Scoring Opportunity 1.114

James
Points 21,081
Scoring Opportunities 18,719.5
Average Points per
Scoring Opportunity 1.126

Now, just for the hell of it, I assumed Bird took five more three point shots every game of his career and bumped his career percentage from 37.6% to 40.1% (that is Ray Allen's career average). Allen is statistically a better free throw shooter so I thought that an apt comparison.

Bird's adjusted totals are:

Points 27,312
Scoring
Opportunities 24,055
Average Points
per scoring
opportunity 1.135

So, yes, using that criteria that Bird shoots a hypothetical five extra three pointers a game and hits all his three pointers at the same rate as Ray Allen Larry would be a bit more efficient than James. But still close to a push. And due entirely to Bird having a far better rookie year at 23 than James at 18. If you toss out both rookie years the James slips back ahead.

So back to my original point. From a scoring standpoint they are really close. And I was wrong in an earlier post about Bird's assists. Bird averaged 6.3 in his career and James averages 6.7. Turnovers are also close at 3.1 and 3.3 respectively. So I will call that a push also.

But if we are arguing about small differences in scoring efficiency the fact that James has made the all first team NBA defensive team five straight years and Bird only made the second team twice then I think that factor pushes James past Bird as the best forward of all time.

 

Cavaliers to C's: We'll give you 2 second-round picks and will use Vaseline if you give us Pierce.

(Although the C's would save $10M by buying him out of his $15M next season.)

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/23/report-cavaliers-offer-celtics-two-second-round-picks-for-pierce/