The NBA is FANTASTIC ... maybe Hyperbolic, too !!
For a half-century or more – pretty much ever since a young attorney named Stern began wielding any influence with the proceedings – the National Basketball Association has chosen to market itself and its game as the “best thing going” in the area of Sports Entertainment, with its superior athletes providing hi-lite reels and Fantastic Finishes aplenty.
But did Adam Silver & Assoc. deliver on this high standard of competitive excellence during the 2021-22 season? Well, let’s look at some numbers.
By contrast, only 167 contests were decided by “one possession” (i.e. three points of less) – only once in every seven or eight games (.136).
The scarcity of “close” games induced me to investigate the frequency of “nail-biters” as opposed to “blow-outs” through now 76 seasons of “Big Time” Pro Hoops …
… and it turns out that Mr. Stern was “full of old shoes” (as my sainted, non-cussin’ Mama would have put it) about those game endings.
In Commissioner Maurice Podoloff’s start-up season of 1946-47, nearly 20% of all BAA games were decided by three points or fewer while fewer than one of every ten games by more than twenty points.
But from the competition standpoint, things kinda went downhill from there – take a look at the data. (I took 15-year intervals, and also included the 25th and 50th anniversary seasons).
Year 1 (1946-47): 1-3 points (64 of 331 gms, .193) 21+ points (31 of 331 gms, .094)
Year 16 (1961-62): 1-3 points (56 of 360 gms, .156) 21+ points (50 of 360 gms, .139)
Year 26 (1971-72): 1-3 points (126 of 697 gms, .181) 21+ points (123 of 697 gms, .176)
Year 31 (1976-77): 1-3 points (158 of 902 gms, .175) 21+ points (104 of 902 gms, .115)
Year 46 (1991-92): 1-3 points (184 of 1,107 gms, .166) 21+ points (142 of 1,107 gms, .128)
Year 51 (1996-97): 1-3 points (176 of 1,189 gms, .148) 21+ points (147 of 1,189 gms, .124)
Year 61 (2006-07): 1-3 points (219 of 1,230 gms, .178) 21+ points (148 of 1,230 gms, .120)
Year 76 (2021-22): 1-3 points (167 of 1,230 gms, .136) 21+ points (208 of 1,230 gms, .169)
More than half of this season’s games – 721 of 1,230. .586 – were decided by between four and 15 points.
For the other seasons charted above, the percentages for the four-to-15-point differentials show a low of .512 (’71-’72) and three seasons (’46-47, ’76-77, and ’96-97) above 60 percent.
