Midway through the 2022-23 National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season, The Athletic published a story entitled “NBA Performance Explosion.” It said that each team averaged 114 points per 100 possessions in the regular season, the highest in league history. The increased performance of some basketball players was also noted. For example, Cleveland shooting guard Donovan Mitchell, who scored 71 points in a match against the Chicago Bulls.
A year later, reporters from the same publication were required to produce a paragraph on a related subject once more; they started the introduction to it on social media by saying, “Sorry, this is a forced copy-paste.” The NBA is, in reality, not slowing down in the 2023–2024 campaign. For example, in January-February 2024, the list of league players who scored 60+ points in one game several times during their careers increased from 6 to 10 people. Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, James Harden and Damian Lillard were joined by Karl-Anthony Towns (62 points for Minnesota against Charlotte), Luka Doncic (73 points for Dallas against Atlanta), Devin Booker (62 points for Phoenix against Indiana) and Steph Curry (60 points for Golden State against Atlanta).
“Vedomosti” Sport” found out why 60+ points have become the norm in the NBA.
The wind of change performance of players
An important nuance: performance in the NBA began to grow not in the last two or three years, but in the last decade. In 2018, The Washington Post published a study by sports journalist Kevin Pelton, who came to several conclusions: 1) compared to the early 2000s, speeds in the NBA increased almost five times 2) basketball players began to shoot from long distances 80% more often.
The coaches Pelton interviewed said they began focusing on shooting from beyond the arc up to 40% of the time in a training session. They explained their decision quite simply: players began to get under the hoop much faster when losing the ball, making it more difficult to score from close range. Having become fascinated by long-range shots, both forwards and defenders began to score significantly more points.
Pelton also found out another interesting detail. Due to the fact that the game has sped up and there are much fewer free zones on the floor, team coaches allow the leaders not to run to the defense. They began to give concessions so that after the next ball was put into play, they would quickly be in attack in space and score. The coaches separately noted the decline in the quality of positional attacks, which de facto were reduced to one task: to quickly get someone out for a long throw.
The agents also sensed the wind of change. Some of them, on condition of anonymity, told Pelton that player contracts were 40% more likely to include various bonuses for performance and a separate line for bonuses for hitting from three-point range. Not all agents approved of this approach, given that among their clients there are still quite a few classic centers with completely different advantages and tasks on the site.
“But still, the era of 120-kilogram straight giants is finally leaving,” Vedomosti said. Sports” by ESPN basketball analyst George Spencer. “Performance is growing naturally; in the NBA there are more versatile players who can do any job and think quickly, score quickly from different distances.”
Show and psychology performance of players
In the fall of 2023, a post of a Cleveland banker who was watching basketball after work with cola and burgers went viral on social media. He wrote that for two minutes of playing time there were five minutes of advertising, which is why at the end of the broadcast the winner was not even really clear – a protracted commercial insert quickly began. In the comments, people wrote that the NBA has turned into a complete show without protection, where the main thing is to attract as many advertisers as possible.
In October 2023, the consulting company IEG presented a report stating that the NBA’s income from sponsorship agreements in the 2022/23 season amounted to a record $1.66 billion. The calculations took into account transactions involving the league itself, all of its 30 teams, as well as the acquisition of rights on the name of the arenas. In total, about 1,500 such contracts were concluded. Sponsorship deals in the NBA have consistently exceeded $1 billion since the 2017-18 season. Then they amounted to $1.12 billion. In the 2018/19 season, the league earned almost $1.3 billion from sponsors, in the 2019/20 season – $1.39 billion, in the 2020/21 season – $1.46 billion, and in the 2021/ 22 – $1.6 billion.
A May 2023 study by the consulting bureau SponsorUnited highlighted the main factors that make the NBA attractive to advertisers. One of them is the league’s desire to grow outside of North America. In the 2022/23 season, the league opened 37 merchandise stores in 12 countries. Fan shops now exist in major cities such as Paris, Berlin, Melbourne, Johannesburg, Abu Dhabi and Manila.
The most active sponsors were Coca-Cola, Toyota, the blockchain platform Socios.com and the telecommunications company Verizon. Each of them concluded over 20 transactions. Spencer adds, “And companies the size of Coca-Cola or Verizon definitely won’t pay for basketball where two teams score fifteen to twenty points in a quarter.” NBA officials understand perfectly well that putting on a show is as profitable as possible: records are being rewritten, revenue is growing. The emergence of an intra-season tournament fits precisely into this concept. You don’t think the players just wanted to spend more time with each other?”
By the way, the president of the Basketball Federation of the World Cup winner, the German national team, said that the team annually receives 250,000 euros less. The thing is that the local automated PotAS system, which analyzes the chances of each German sports federation to bring a medal from the World Cup, does not rate basketball players highly. And the distribution of money depends on the PotAS rating.
Psychological factors also have a significant role in the NBA’s improved performance. “The league has an excessive amount of skill concentration, and competition is constant. Given that Jokic, Doncic, and Antetokounmpo are all within a single age range of one another, Vedomosti speculated that they may be driven to compete relentlessly to be crowned the best player of their generation. Athletics”Konstantin Zavyalov, head coach of physical training for a Russian Super League team. And one of the main goals is to score more points than your rival. They are prepared to run and throw endlessly in response to this.
