They're Breaking The NBA Again

over the last decade three-pointers have taken over the NBA the shot transformed from a gimmick so underutilized that the league had to move the three-point line closer to the hoop just to incentivize teams to take more to a shot that now determines the outcome of many games but after an entire era of seemingly exponential growth recently The Barrage of three-pointers appeared to stabilize in fact the league had become so saturated with threes that the scales had flipped and two-pointers became slightly more valuable than three-pointers just like anything else something that was good and effective but

only up to a certain point and that point had been reached the shot was pushed to its fullest extent and the three-point revolution had met its inevitable conclusion except it didn't this season teams across the NBA are shooting more threes than ever before some teams with the majority of all of their shots being taken from Beyond The Ark a new generation of stars more Trigger Happy from three than the players that came before them and games that feel like one long Three-Point Contest is the NBA on a path to being a league featuring exclusively long

balls layups and nothing else well in 2015 right about the time the league began to shift away from the basket Steph Curry attempted eight three-pointers per game the highest total in the league That season and just the fifth player in NBA history to attempt at least eight threes a game by the next season three other players joined him as ultra high volume three-point Shooters but by 2020 the number of players across the league attempting at least 8 threes a game jumped to 15 the three-point Revolution was long in effect by this point and it would

remain at this level for the next few seasons the league seemingly finding its equilibrium on threes and how many are even worth taking until this season where there are 24 players in the NBA who are attempting what was once considered a historic amount of Threes just a decade ago something is changing in the NBA right now are we nearing the end of the three-point era or are we just getting started today's video is brought to you by SeatGeek the NBA season is heating up your favorite artists are on tour and y'all are going to need

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the promo code and you're done take advantage of this deal while it's still around download the SeatGeek app and use code Jimmy 10 for 10% off any order in 2016 the Golden State Warriors completely redefined how basketball has played for the first time a team that centered their offense around the three ball proved that it can be a championship winning strategy and they weren't just a three-point oriented team they were the three-point team they bucked age-old Notions of what great basketball could look like their stard Doo named after their shooting abilities the most influential team

of Our Generation That season the Warriors shot 31.6 threp pointers per game the second most of any team in league history and by far the most of any true Championship caliber team this season every single team in the NBA attempts more threes a game than the 2016 warriors did their influence reshaping the league far more than anyone could have anticipated but teams aren't just shooting more threes than ever before they are approaching the point where the majority of all shots taken in a game are three-pointers here's a game between the Hornets and the Celtics and

with 1036 left in the third quarter Jason Tatum attempts a three the Hornets come back and attempt a three as well Celtics turn it over Hornets attempt a three Celtics come down and attempt another three Hornets come down and attempt a three followed by a Celtics three followed by a Hornets three followed by another three Celtics switch it up for a moment with a layup and then right back to a Hornets 3 turn over Hornets 3 Celtics 3 Hornets 3 Celtics 3 this was a real sequence in an NBA game this actually happened a 4minute

stretch where both teams combined for nearly 14 consecutive three-point attempts if it wasn't for an easy layup at The Rim this is insane and it's not even out of the ordinary this season here's another sequence between the Celtics and the Knicks now this was already a blowout so you never know what you're going to get in these situations but how about a three ball followed up with a turnover another three ball and another three ball and another three ball another turnover three ball turnover three ball oh look there's a layup then back to another three

ball and a turnover and a three ball and take a wild guess a three ball three straight minutes of three-pointers eight from the Celtics alone and they missed all eight but even this was nothing compared to what happened in a game between the Hornets and the Hawks with a minute and 45 seconds left in the first quarter the Hornets made a mid-range jump shot what's so special about this mid-range bucket well nothing other than the fact that this would be the last shot they would make outside of layups and three-pointers for the rest of the

entire game for the next 37 minutes of game time outside of free throws every single point the Hornets scored until the end of the game was from right here or out here in fact throughout this entire game The Hornet scored 120 points only four of them came from a shot that wasn't a three-pointer a layup or a free throw has the complex rich and diverse game that we love truly been reduced to this it certainly feels that way at times through 100 games so far this season a whopping 42% of all field goal attempts have

been from Beyond the three-point line a total that has nearly doubled since 2012 sometimes it feels like we're watching one big Three-Point Contest because at times we are in fact at the current rate the league is going which may or may not continue half of all shots taken in an NBA game will be three-pointers by the 2032 season but it's not just that teams are attempting more three-pointers teams have regressed to taking only the best most efficient shots on the court three-pointers layups when they're available and hardly anything in between excluding free throws 86% of

all points scored from NBA teams this season have been from Beyond the three-point line or within 6 feet of the basket 20 years ago only 65% of all points were scored from these zones now this upward trend of near and far and nothing in between may not continue over the past few seasons there has been some stagnation in three-point attempt rate so there may be a shift in the other direction in the coming years but the NBA tends to follow the leader what are are the winning teams doing and how can we adapt emulate and

optimize that style of play and right now as much as we can't stand it winning basketball looks a lot like a Three-Point Shootout before the beginning of this season Celtics head coach Joe Missoula said the team planned on shooting a lot more threes this year they did the math and it checked out we need more threes but outside of Harden's Rockets last year Celtics attempted more three-pointers than any other team in NBA history it was a recipe that was so good it helped help them win a championship how many more threes could they possibly shoot

the 51 this year's Celtics are shooting 51 three-pointers per game that is 56% of all of their field goal attempts arguably the best team in the league coming off of a championship is shooting six more three-pointers per game than any other team in league history but our three-pointers and the sheer volume of them really a recipe for winning basketball is this truly the future of the game and what teams will need to do to compete well so far this season teams that win the three-point battle when they score more net points from three-pointers than their

opponent have won 72% of the time and this one metric has been more indicative to winning than just about any other last season there was an 85.6% correlation between 3 percentage and winning percentage the strongest correlation between the two variables in NBA history make more three-pointers greatly increase your odds of winning the game but that's pretty obvious of course making more threes will better your odds we have seen massive underdogs win games by pouring in three-pointers and hitting more than they probably should have will teams eventually reach the thresold of three-pointers that are worth taking

in a game or is the shot just so valuable that we will inevitably see a league that finds no value and taking any shot outside of the long ball there must be a sweet spot between shooting exclusively through threes and no threes where we will eventually see the limit of good viable three-pointers oddly enough the league may have already met that limit as previously mentioned three-pointers used to yield more points per shot than two-pointers for many years teams eventually figured this out and they capitalized on it but this inadvertently led to two-pointers becoming more valuable

as teams focused their defensive efforts on stopping the three ball they got spread thin the rim opened wide up offenses got rid of long mid-range jumpers and for the first time in over three decades two-pointers produce just as many points per shot as three-pointers how do we know if or when teams are shooting too many threes well intuitively it would be at the point where three-pointers lose their statistical advantage over twos which has already happened the problem of too many threes has already statistically corrected itself but despite this the Celtics and many other teams are

committed to shooting more threes than they previously did they are aware of the data and they still decided that upping their three-point rate is the answer Steve Kerr has said that it would be hard for the Warriors to compete without shooting a high volume of Threes Mike buen holer said he thinks the sport is in a good place and that threes create more space to be more athletic and dynamic going to the basket Devin Booker a player who utilizes and values the mid-range game as much as any player in the league said the volume should

be up attempting the three-point shot not even making it stretches out the defense and opens up better looks throughout the game teams know that the two-pointers today aren't as valuable as they are in spite of threes two pointers today have become so valuable because of Threes as Devon Booker stated even when they aren't going in the spacing and ball movement that three-pointers provides to teams creates an incredible Advantage compared to any other shot in fact it's no coincidence that points per shot on two-pointers began to climb rapidly at the same exact time as the three-point

Revolution when you force teams to guard the three you also force them to give up the two this whole time we've been watching these games thinking teams are shooting way too many threes and all along they weren't just shooting threes because they're worth more points they've been shooting more threes to create more points in other areas the direct benefits of volume three-pointers actually plateaued quite a while ago teams aren't yielding more points per shot on threes today than they did a decade ago but the indirect benefits of volume 3es can continues to grow the more

teams make and take them which means in theory the number of Threes we're seeing teams take could continue to climb despite the fact that they are already at the peak of their direct statistical Advantage but just how much further could this go well this is where things get really interesting if we ignore the caliber of teams and the efficiency of their shooting and just look purely at volume then through over 150 games so far this season teams have found by far the most success when they shoot somewhere between 46 and 52% of all of their

shots from Beyond The Arc this season when teams put up a three-point attempt rate between 46 and 52% they have won over 70% of the time meanwhile teams that shoot at a rate outside of this hypothetical Sweet Spot have won just 48% of the time which means despite as many three-pointers teams are shooting statistically they may still not be shooting enough and may only be a matter of time before teams use this information and slowly creep towards this rate of 50% of all of their shots consisting of three-pointers last week Nick Wright had a great

monologue discussing the advantages of volume three-point shooting and how teams who can design an effective offense built around them have an incredible statistical Advantage the league needs to change some rules they have finally figured out it's not only that three is worth more than two it's that three is worth a lot more than two because there is a 50% premium on three-point shots the smart way to play is probably what the Celtics did on opening night shoot 60 of them things that is the best strategy that is also terrible television and I love the league

I love it but this is not sustainable at its core the NBA is at its best when dudes are flying over people meeting them at The Rim hanging out at the three-point line hoisting 30f Footers is not good TV and you are going down a path where the games are less compelling television and the fans are worried do the players even care it's just a warning to a league I love you are playing a dangerous dangerous game if what the Warriors did in the mid-20s broke the game of basketball then teams today are eviscerating it

they have essentially cracked the code Decades of experimenting with different schemes and offensive designs player Personnel through trial and error has led teams to the correct answer nothing beats a bunch of good looks at three it may not be pretty it may lack the nuance and diversity that we used to see in the league but it has been proven to be the most effective method of winning basketball games how much further can this possibly go well fortunately there seems to be an upper limit to the ideal volume of Threes before the returns become diminished that

limit is probably about 50% unfortunately for us the NBA is still nowhere near that limit [Music]