Basketball appears to be the next frontier of advanced statistics after teams trying to get an edge have nearly exhausted baseball. Now, when you follow the NBA you often hear of things like Player Efficiency Rating (PER), which is comparable to baseball’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR). As a result of this challenge to become more calculating and efficient, however, we see an interesting trend. It all started with the Houston Rockets and is now perpetuated by several other teams in the league.
The Rockets’ plan was a pretty simple one in terms of thought process. They simply wondered, “What can we do to maximize our expected points each and every time down the court?”‘ The answer they derived was also fairly intuitive. They were going to shoot a lot of three pointers and to attack the rim as much as possible. By eliminating long two pointers, they maximized expected value (good three-point shooters can average 1.3-1.5 points per shot) or maximized percentage of scoring (layups are scored at a higher rate than 20-foot jumpers). And because of this, the first real implementation of analytics in basketball was born. Not everyone claims to be a fan, but the implementation of similar systems around the league is undeniable.
For the first time in the history of the NBA, there were more three-point shot attempts in a month than there were free throw attempts. The bonuses are obvious: A three pointer gives you more points than shots that typically result in free throws. What is startling, however, is the sheer number of three pointers being shot around the league.
Looking across the league, the NBA threes are skyrocketing, but on an individual level this appears to be the golden age of elite outside shooters. The Atlanta Hawks’ Kyle Korver, a journeyman sharpshooter who appears to have found a home, is on pace for the first 50/50/90 season in NBA history. This would mean that Korver made 50 percent of his total field goals and three pointers, while also making 90 percent of his free throw attempts.
Korver thrives in the catch-and-shoot system of offense that the Hawks are currently running. This style also happens to be by far the most efficient in terms of raising a team’s shooting percentage on long balls. The Hawks might not publicize their attempts to use these theories on the court like the Rockets did, but they certainly are making use of them.
On the other side of the country we see players like Klay Thompson, who capped a record-setting 37-point quarter last week by going 9-9 from the three-point range.
If players are going to keep getting better at the three-point shot, there will continue to be an increased emphasis on it. As NBA All-Star and former NBA champion Chris Bosh put it when asked about his new tendency to shoot the long ball, “I’ll start dunking again when it gives me three points.” The game gets significantly more complex when a team has an elite outside threat capable of scoring points in a hurry.
The other upside to having the focus of a roster on making the outside shot is the ability to maintain an advantage for a longer period of time. Players like Dwyane Wade have struggled to adapt their game as their bodies start to age and athleticism goes, conversely you have players like Ray Allen, Mike Miller and Korver, who seem to have eternal life on the court.
The movement toward increased analytic approaches using probability and expected value theory isn’t going away. In fact, if anything, it’s only going to get bigger as teams become more successful in implementing systems similar. As teams improve and cut out “wasted plays,” we could see an offensive explosion around the league as team craft offenses to run like well-oiled machines, cranking out as many points per possession as humanly possible.
