Why has shooting declined over the ages? Shot percentage has gone down from around 47%-49% from the 80s - mid 90s to around 44% today.
One theory is the game revolved more around big men? Big men take higher percentage shots. Nope. And the big men playing today shoot at a higher percent than before. Look at the leaders: basketball-reference.com/leaders/fg_pct_career.html
the top 4 are all post mid 90's players, three active today.
The guards and shooters back then were just better shooters.
These guys all routinely shot over 50% in their careers and by shoot I mean they actually shot tons of difficult jump shots, not just big men camping around the lane making layups and dunks.
you think about kobe, harden, westbrook, it, drose, etc. none of them shoot that well and only a few do and it's mostly from layups and dunks like dwade or bron.
here you can clearly see fg% was higher back then and if you look at some of the best shooting teams for example mj's bulls during their first 3pete, they were stocked full of shooters.
David Barnes
because the 3pt line has been moved back multiple times
Elijah Garcia
that doesn't explain why guys who don't shoot many threes today shoot like shit. i'm talking jumpers here, not just threes. i'd argue they're better at shooting threes today but a lot worse at jumpers.
Owen Lopez
also it was only shorter from 94-97, so no either way
Alexander Johnson
>basketball-reference.com/leaders/fg_pct_career.html there are 450 players in the league today, but many thousands who have played in league history, thus the list is populated largely by former players, the top 3 (all active) is too small a sample size to mean anything
Even without that you can look at the scorers back then and see many of them were not big men and they shot the ball better than the scorers of today. This is proof that it wasn't just big men shooting better. The shooters shot better back then too.
Anthony Martinez
so post the stats already
Hunter Moore
I listed several of the top players per generation through the ages.
Think about someone like Drazen Petrovic or the others I listed. There's hardly anybody who shoots that well today. Most of the "shooters" today shoot 45% or less. 50% back then was common.
there were only 5 teams shooting 47% or better this season. in 1990 there nearly 20, several of them being led by a shooter.
Jose Roberts
league avg in 1990: 47% league avg in 2017: 45%
and this is best case scenario. and really if it werent for the nets, 1990 would be even better.
Caleb Fisher
it was a weak era :^)
Joshua Ross
The pace is way higher and teams shoot way more jump shots. Reggie Miller only attempted 4.7 threes per game in his career. Curry's average is already at 7.6
James Jones
More shots, more misses, simple math.
Brayden Foster
Not enough white people
Jackson Mitchell
>percentage
Connor Barnes
Defending is better now, Curry takes some contended shoots no one would take in the 80s or 90s
Nicholas Gray
Because people take more 3s and you aren't gonna shoot as high of a percentage when taking more 3s
Chase Cox
>murican education
Your percentage will drop off if you take 20 shots instead of 10.
Daniel Johnson
>Yugoslavian education
Henry Jackson
threes are only one small part of overall fg% and sample size is an invalid answer. they took plenty of shots.
compare 1991 bulls fga 7,125 (14th in nba) to 2017 warriors fga 7,140 (9th in nba)
Simple fact of the matter is shooters today are dogshit compared to back then.
Dylan Reyes
that's only a recent trend and stats don't back it up. fg% dropped well before the meme shot era began.
Aiden Jackson
also they shoot 3pt% higher since they began shooting more, so 3's don't explain the difference either way.
Sebastian Ramirez
curry is an anamoly and the warriors are the only exception. without them the nba today would be much worse.
