As the NBA season will soon begin, there is currently not a better time than now to reflect on the state of basketball and its evolution from its relatively overlooked merger with the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1976 to the media and cultural juggernaut it is today. While the Golden State Warriors are enjoying a reign of dominance that places their roster among the greatest of all time, teams across the league are increasingly relying on experimentation with lineups, strategies, and players to create free-flowing offenses and strong team defensives, a phenomenon reflecting the transition to “positionless basketball”.

This style is an incredibly far cry from the NBA of recent decades, in which legendary teams such as the Bulls, Jazz, and Rockets of the 90s as well as the Lakers, Celtics, and Suns of the 2000s played in strict routines such as the triangle offense and isolation-based play while emphasizing the physicality of defense. To breakdown exactly how the league has changed over the years, this article will directly compare NBA seasons since 1976 and attempt to illustrate the game’s increased offensive pace and ball movement as well as offer insights behind the shifts in such trends.

First, let’s compare the basic slash lines for a league average team in the 1976 compared to such a team in 2016. The NBA in 1976 fielded teams who on average made 42.8 shots per game on 46.5% shooting, all of which were recorded as two pointers due to the lack of a 3 point line that would be introduced in 1979. Furthermore, these teams average 15 offensive rebounds and 32.1 defensive rebounds, all while averaging 24 assists per game. One would most certainly expect the numbers to increase across the board in 2016 for each team, but the statistics show otherwise. Last year, teams made around 39 shots per game for a field goal percentage of 45.7% while grabbing 10.1 offensive rebounds and 33.4 defensive rebounds, finishing off with 22.6 assists. On face value, one could make the argument that teams have regressed in nearly every major statistical category, but the trend of positionless basketball can explain many of these incongruencies.

In the past, the ABA and NBA were dominated by big men such as Wilt Chamberlain and George Gervin who were incredibly athletic and had an inherent physical advantage with getting to the rim. Such players also had the advantage of having offenses run through them, as teams looked to the paint as the most efficient way of scoring. The three point line would change this and its effect is particularly noted in the NBA as of 2016, with the Warriors essentially building its core from 3 dominant shooters that could create separation between the floor and lead to easy points in the inside. Before, most of the offense would come from a physically dominant big man who did not need to possess traits of agility and strategic awareness, but the trend these days leans toward big men needing to be able to guard players along the perimeter and possess the lateral quickness necessary to stop players from advancing. Further, big men are increasingly running the offense on teams from the inside, the most popular examples being Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Perhaps the greatest change is the banishing of hand-checking from basketball, a rule introduced in the 2004-2005 season that greatly influenced teams such as the Phoenix Suns who first began experimenting with a run-and-gun style of offensive play that forced them to attempt to score in seven seconds or less. Hand-checking, or the use of the hands and arms by a defensive player from preventing an offensive player from moving forwards, allowed smaller players to shine and use their lateral quickness to score. Guards such as Stephen Curry and Chris Paul, who were both on the shorter side of NBA players, were able to freely maneuver through players and either pull up or distribute the ball. This change was perhaps the most impactful, as a smoother offense and freer passing movements were now all more possible, helping create the Warriors, along with the rest of the NBA, as we know it today.