3ball
04-15-2015, 04:43 AM
We all know the NBA officially stated (http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/04/09/stujackson/index.html) that the bans on hand-checking and physicality succeeded at their primary objective of increasing penetration.. But in addition to the hands-off approach that must be used when guarding penetration, today's defenders are also incredibly restricted inside the 16 x 19 foot painted area.
Specifically, the NBA banned paint-camping and zone inside the paint with the defensive 3 seconds rule - defenders can't stand in the paint with no other offensive players around (they can't zone).. Instead, the defensive 3 seconds rule requires defenders to stand right next to their man (within armslength (http://www.nba.com/nba101/misunderstood_0708.html)) at all times while inside the paint.
With paint-camping banned, bigs are forced to come out of the paint to flood and shade in the ballhandler's wheelhouse - the perimeter.. Defending guards on the perimeter is a massive disadvantage for bigs, but today's spacing and ban on paint-camping necessitate it - otoh, in previous eras, there was no spacing and paint-camping was legal, so bigs didn't need to come out of the paint to shade on the perimeter, although they still did in many situations, such as screen-roll (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=358589&page=8).
To summarize, today's paint-camping ban along with spacing creates a greater need for flooding and shading than previous eras.. Although these partial zones executed outside the paint by slow bigs are easy to beat for perimeter ballhandlers, they provide a bandaid to offset today's spacing, paint-camping ban, and hand-check ban, so defensive effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff in comparison to previous eras.
It makes sense that the NBA wouldn't ever take everything away from the defense (hand-check ban, physicality ban, paint-camping ban) without giving them something back (zones outside the paint) - the balanced regulatory approach coupled with constant strategic adjustments on both sides of the ball is the reason why league-wide ORtg has remained between 106-108 for the last 30 years (except from 1998-2004).
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Specifically, the NBA banned paint-camping and zone inside the paint with the defensive 3 seconds rule - defenders can't stand in the paint with no other offensive players around (they can't zone).. Instead, the defensive 3 seconds rule requires defenders to stand right next to their man (within armslength (http://www.nba.com/nba101/misunderstood_0708.html)) at all times while inside the paint.
With paint-camping banned, bigs are forced to come out of the paint to flood and shade in the ballhandler's wheelhouse - the perimeter.. Defending guards on the perimeter is a massive disadvantage for bigs, but today's spacing and ban on paint-camping necessitate it - otoh, in previous eras, there was no spacing and paint-camping was legal, so bigs didn't need to come out of the paint to shade on the perimeter, although they still did in many situations, such as screen-roll (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=358589&page=8).
To summarize, today's paint-camping ban along with spacing creates a greater need for flooding and shading than previous eras.. Although these partial zones executed outside the paint by slow bigs are easy to beat for perimeter ballhandlers, they provide a bandaid to offset today's spacing, paint-camping ban, and hand-check ban, so defensive effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff in comparison to previous eras.
It makes sense that the NBA wouldn't ever take everything away from the defense (hand-check ban, physicality ban, paint-camping ban) without giving them something back (zones outside the paint) - the balanced regulatory approach coupled with constant strategic adjustments on both sides of the ball is the reason why league-wide ORtg has remained between 106-108 for the last 30 years (except from 1998-2004).
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