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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Nba Needs Some Shots In The Arm

Joe Gilmartin Arizona Republic

Once upon a time in the NBA scoring was pretty much taken for granted. So much so that the going rate for shooters was said to be a dime a dozen.

“Sure the guy can shoot,” grizzled scouts (Make that scout. The league only had one in those days) would grumble. “But the woods are full of guys who can shoot. The question is, can he play basketball?”

Points were so cheap even the poorest teams could afford more than a 100 a game - a circumstance that was sneered at by the college folks but used as a sales pitch by the pros.

But that was then and this is now.

People started fretting about the point shortage in 1993, when the average team score was 105.3. But 1993 is now looked back on fondly as the good old days (not to be confused with the great old days, like 1969, when the average hit a record 122.3).

Since ‘93 the average has fallen from 101.5 to 101.4 to 99.5. And this year it has plunged to 94.1.

“That’s a dramatic drop,” says Seymour Siwoff (aka the Michael Jordan of stats), general manager of the Elias Sports Bureau, the NBA’s statistical service. “Something is happening, and it’s not good.”

Seymour, you understand, loves basketball almost as much as he loves numbers. And this sharp downturn in point production has him worried.

Currently, only four teams are averaging 100 points or better, and six are not even breaking 90. The Bulls lead the league in field-goal accuracy at .472. In ‘93 that would have ranked them 15th.

Nobody really knows where the shooters have gone. Or the shots. The 1960 Celtics averaged 117.5 shots a game. This year’s Cavaliers are squeezing off only 75. Granted, that’s the two extremes, but total shots per game have dropped from 177.3 in 1986 to 157.2 this year.

And to put that in perspective, in 1951, when there was no shot clock, the per-game shot attempt average was 166.6.

While shooting is not nearly as sharp now as in the 1980s and early ‘90s, it’s still sharper than it was in the league’s fledgling era. That ‘60 Boston team, for instance, hit only .417 from the field.

But it also scored 124.5 points a game, and had to be a lot more fun to watch than these 87-85 (and even 65) games we’re seeing today.

Theories abound on where all the shooters and shots have gone.

Some invoke the NBA’s Riley Rule (i.e. anything that can be blamed on Pat Riley must be). His success with the Knicks, they grumble, convinced a lot of coaches that if you don’t have superstars, thug basketball is the best way to go.

Suns’ assistant Paul Silas says the problem is shooters don’t practice shooting like they used to. Others point to the 3-point arc, and say the only shots anybody works on are the trey and the dunk.

Seymour has his own theory.

“You’ve got athletes coming into the league now,” he says. “Fancy dans who can’t shoot.”

The league’s public position is the scoring drought is not a major problem. But privately it is plenty worried. More so because the rules remedy used by other sports to cure scoring ills (baseball lowered the mound, football loosened the pass-blocking rules and tightened the chucking rules) does not appear to be available to hoops.

“Maybe the situation will correct itself,” Seymour says.