Yeah, I get the math. But what you saying is nothing will change since the math is the same. I anticipate behavioral change regardless, to test it, especially from the 85% and up shooters. All I’m doing his predicting how it might be tested. I also think league-wide FT% will drop, not to say I don’t like the rule, just sayin first FT is harder than the second and third (on average).
TS% is calculated from boxscore numbers. They will have to change how they record FTs or how they calculate TS% from the FT numbers. Otherwise the problem mentioned by DoD is still there. And the fact that the last two minutes of games is different from the rest of the game doesn't help. Changing how they record the boxscore numbers is probably the easiest way. (One 2-shot foul is recorded as 2 FTs, and one 3-shot foul is recorded as 3 FTs, etc.) But it will not reflect the true FT% of a player, although the statistical approximation over a large sample size might be good enough. The discrepancy between the accuracies of the first FT and the second and third may be more problematic. We may see a general lower FT% because of that.
The boxscore will change to account for it - the NBA is not just going to stop tracking how many points people are getting from free throws. Fortunately, we have computers to help us and they'll be able to do all the calculations necessary. I just think of all of the things to be thinking about with this change, this is the very bottom of the totem poll.
I guess this is where the sides kind of disagree. The math of some of the calculations is easy. Coding it is easy. What I was worried about was how it changes what some of the more fundamental beliefs and arguments, such as the resulting rebounding stats, etc. of the game when a value like TS% can potentially change, when FT% can change, even strategy, etc. You end up with people in 2030 talking about FT shooting being worse or better than back in 2025 without realizing the caveat that how free throws were shot or how some stats are literally calculated changed over those years. For me it's never been about how do you adjust stats to accommodate this, it's whether what we're doing is even worth it. But then I thought about it, and I guess this kind of stuff has been going on for years. The 2020 NBA Combine results, the introduction of the 3 pointer, high school/college kids not coming into the league at 18/19 years old, etc. all affected how people talk about "best ever", how "today's game" is vs. "yesterday's game", and comparative stats, in general, when comparing players across eras. Well, it affected those who do anything more than just yank stats out of a search site and post them, anyway. Times change, so we'll just move on if this changes, too.
Oh, well I agree I'm not upset about it speeding up the rest of the game, but the last two minutes is what most desperately needs to be fast-forwarded. It is not unusual if you DVR the game for the last two minutes of a close game to take 20 minutes of recorded time... It's absolutely torturous some games. And if you do literally fast forward through breaks, you run some risk of accidentally spoiling big moments! OK first world problems aside, that really is where this change would be most valuable. AND it would make things more interesting I think.
