Nearly two weeks into the 2022-23 NBA season, offenses are performing at rates never before seen so early in the schedule. How much of that is a result of the league's rule change penalizing transition take fouls?
As the season tipped off, I highlighted the new rule imported from the G League and its success in reducing fouls to stop fast breaks. But it was difficult to tell how much impact a similar rule would have because G League players never got in the same habit of intentionally fouling, which had become common in the NBA.
Now, we've had a reasonable sample to see the rule in action. We've also had a series of high scores. Entering Sunday's play, half the league's teams were averaging at least 115 points per game, something not seen in the NBA over a full season since eight of the 14 teams accomplished it in the 1969-70 season.
How reliable an indicator is the increase in scoring at this point of the season? And what do the numbers tell us about how much can be explained by the absence of transition take fouls? Let's take a look.
Scoring and efficiency are off to historic starts
Because the league's weakest offenses have been worse relative to the typical one than the best offenses have been good, the average entering Sunday's games was a mere 114.0 points per game.
That's still easily the highest at this stage of the season since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77, more than a point per game ahead of the fast start to the 2018-19 campaign.
Back then, I showed that early-season scoring results are predictive of the full season, with a slight decrease in pace over the course of the schedule offset by improved efficiency.
Given that history, it seems almost certain we'll set a new record for highest scoring average since the merger, surpassing 112.1 points per game in 2020-21. Remarkably, last season (110.6 PPG) was the only time in the past four campaigns that hasn't reset that record.
In the context of the new transition take rule, it's interesting to note that increased scoring isn't a product of faster pace. In fact, the 100.5 possessions per 48 minutes the league is averaging are the lowest at this point since 2017-18.
Instead, NBA teams are simply scoring more efficiently than ever before.
The past five seasons have been the most efficient since the NBA began tracking possessions in 1996-97, and yet this season's start blows them all away.
If the season ended today, the current offensive rating would narrowly surpass the 2020-21 campaign's final mark of 111.7 points per 100 possessions as the highest on record. (And remember, efficiency typically improves as the season goes on.)
In the 26 years for which we have data, efficiency has never declined from where it was through the first 12 days of the season to the final mark. So this record too seems destined to fall.
The impact of the new transition take foul rule
Through Saturday, there had been 32 transition take fouls called this season, an average of 0.4 per game. Those plays have contributed to some degree to the increase in offensive rating. Teams have made 29 of the 32 penalty free throws (91%), a somewhat higher rate than we'd expect based on the history of technical fouls. (The league made those at an 81% clip last season.)
Add in the 1.34 points fouled teams have averaged on the subsequent possession and each transition take foul is costing the teams committing the fouls 2.25 points to this point, far worse than simply giving the opponent an uncontested dunk.
Still, the bigger effect of the transition take foul is likely in the ones that aren't being committed. As I found in my previous piece, last season there was an average of 1.4 take fouls per game outside the final minute of quarters and last two minutes of the fourth (when take fouls are largely committed as fouls to give or to send opponents to the free throw line).
Some of those missing take fouls have surely become semi-intentional fouls disguised as plays on the ball. Still, it's evident in watching games that players have regularly gone to instinctively foul in transition before remembering the new rule, leading to fast breaks that otherwise would have been stopped before they started.
Through Saturday, 16% of plays were coming in transition, according to Cleaning the Glass tracking. That's down from the first 12 days of last season (17%) but slightly higher than we saw over the same span at the start of 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Perhaps more importantly, the efficiency on transition opportunities has surged. Per Cleaning the Glass, teams are averaging 1.26 points per play in transition, up from a previous high at this point of 1.22 in 2018-19.
Why the scoring spree is not just about transition
Even as teams adapt to the new rule and focus on getting back rather than fouling, offenses seem likely to stay ahead of defenses. Filtering out those transition opportunities, Cleaning the Glass has teams scoring at their highest rate ever through 12 games in half-court settings: 0.96 points per play on the initial opportunity before a possible offensive rebound, up from 0.95 at this point in both 2018-19 and 2020-21.
One additional factor accounts for the high-scoring start to 2022-23: the return of offensive rebounding. Through Saturday, offenses were securing one-quarter of available offensive rebounds, the highest mark through the first 12 days of the season since 2014-15.
A decadeslong trend away from offensive rebounding culminated in offenses grabbing just 22% of rebounds in 2020-21, the lowest mark in league history. That bounced back a bit last season (23%), and it has come back in a big way so far this season. Those second chances are extending possessions, which is why we haven't seen an increase in pace with more transition opportunities.
To some extent, the improved offensive rebounding could be related to more transition play. Per Second Spectrum tracking, 27% of offensive rebounds through Saturday had come on shots in the first eight seconds of the clock as compared to 25% of all missed shots.
Additionally, more transition opportunities help explain another early-season stat worth noting: The 38% of shot attempts that have been 3s thus far is down from 40% last season. Although 3-point attempts typically go up over the course of the schedule, that's the fewest at the same point since 2019-20.
Even as teams increasingly run for 3-pointers, just 35% of shots within the first eight seconds of the clock this season have been 3s, according to Second Spectrum data, as compared to 40% later in the clock.
Nearing the two-week mark of the 2022-23 regular season, it's clear the transition take foul is working as the league intended to create more exciting plays in the open court. Yet the highest offensive efficiency we've ever seen goes beyond that rule change.