One of my favorite things in the world is basketball, likely the only thing I’d ever argue over till my opposition is blue in the face. (except for the state of Texas, or maybe Mexican food) But I think it’s all part of the job when you likely know more than those who attempt to challenge you. So when I hear the incessant groans by old farts that “the NBA does not play defense, therefore college is better” I tune it out like it is a frequency the human ear can’t pick up.
I have grown tired of these claims, and thankfully, I care far more about this topic than those who disagree with me, and thus I can make them look foolish regardless.
To start, let’s look at why anyone would make this claim, thankfully, we know that this baseless claim against the NBA is built on one thing, average scores. For starters, this entire article will use the ACC as a baseline, it is the premier league for College Basketball and thus we will be putting the best against the best.
I will be using the 18-19 ACC season against the 19-20 NBA season, the reason for that is because the 18-19 season is the last fully completed season and the NBA’s season was close enough to a full season it is more than a fair comparison.
Average scores in the ACC vs College? Each NBA team averaged 111.8 points per game compared to the ACC’s 73.0 points per game. This is good for a difference of 38.8 points per game. This is where many pack up their things and call their argument concrete. The only problem is that they do not account for the huge number of variables and complexities that change things.
Let’s begin with an easy one, one regulation game in college is two 20 minute halves for a 40-minute game. The NBA is four 12 minute quarters which is 48 minutes a game.
So what this means is that an ACC team is good for 1.83 points per minute. The NBA scores 2.32 points per minute. Again, this is a difference that is of note, but even so, this still does not prove that the NBA has become a defenseless league.
Another thing that factors heavily into scoring is field goal percentage, the more made shots, the more points you score. While this does not factor in made free throws, it will be a good gauge to see the actual shots teams are making.
In the ACC the average field goal percentage across the league was .436 that is not bad, it is a more than healthy FG% in basketball, but the NBA has an average field goal percentage of .460 which is quite efficient.
This is where it is hard to argue about defense or anything like that, plain and simple, the NBA makes more of their shots than college does. It is actually quite a big discrepancy too.
The NBA also uses a 24-second shot clock compared to the NCAA which uses a 35-second shot clock. That is 11 seconds more, or a 45.833% increase in time. This means that college players are taking longer to shoot the basketball. We see it in the high-school game all the time. When there is no pressure or reason to shoot, you aren’t going to. High-school teams dribble and pass for dozens of seconds before taking shots sometimes.
This means the pacing is so much slower than teams considered quick in college would be considered slow in the NBA. College teams don’t play fast because they simply don’t have to and likely don’t have the skill or fitness to do it for the length of the game.
Simply put, taking all of this into account, it is easy to understand that scoring in the NBA is done easier by the fact that players make more shots, and end up better at the charity stripe.
It’s hard to understand why those who find college to be a better product would dream up the fantasy that “the NBA plays no defense” but at least we now know they’re completely wrong.
James Wilson is the host of “The Pit Stop with James Wilson” Fridays at 6pm on Tobacco Road Sports Radio. He is also the co host of The Score with Brett Wiseman Saturday mornings at 10am on TRSR. Catch all episodes on the Tobacco Road Sports Radio Podcast Network
