Are we at PEAK 3-pointers?
Or will it just keep going, and going; until all we have left are a deluge of rainbow threes with Mike Breen yelling 'Bang' after each one?
In what feels like a blink of an eye, a quarter the NBA season has flown past us. It’s been another fun one with the Suns continuing their run from last season, the Warriors looking like the Warriors again, and the East looking up for grabs.
And for the first time in a while, we have not heard so much of the doom-and-gloom pieces, asking whether the League is shooting too many threes.
I personally enjoy threes in whatever form they come in. I think the dichotomy between long-range shooting and interior shots actually adds a strategic layer that appeals to my inner game theory / poker nerd.
But not all do. As evidenced by the hand-wringing we’ve seen over the last few years like this article from the Ringer, or this one from ESPN.
So has all the noise stopped since we have peak three-ball? What’s the data say?
That’s a solid no.
The three point attempt rate is still up this year over last, which was the highest in league history. Maybe teams will be jacking up 80 3-pointers per game.
So if everybody is doing it - it must be working out, right?
Well… not so fast. Take a look at this chart of each team’s offensive rating (points per 100 possessions):
This year has actually seen a precipitous drop from last year, or even the 18-19 season (the last full non-pandemic season).
What about the decline in free throws! I hear you ask. We can take that out of the equation by looking at effective FG%.
And as a visual aid, here’s the same data as a box plot:
It’s early, but not that early. This isn’t likely to be just variance.
The evidence to date strongly suggests that just taking more threes isn’t a simple cheat code. You can’t simply bend the game to your will by taking more threes.
Take out last year (no crowd) and the Disney World year (bubble, no crowd) - the offensive efficiencies have plateaued since 2017-18.
And that’s quite interesting. Historically, we’ve seen that more threes has been simply better. This is the chart of all teams’ 3 point attempt rate (3PAr) vs effective FG% (eFG%). There’s a clear positive relationship.
So what’s going on?
What happens if we take a look at the data more closely? Say, if we filtered for high-3-pointer volume teams. What does that look like?
Does that look like a positive correlation to you? Maybe.. if you squint really hard?
For the record, the Pearson Correlation coefficient for the latter subset is only 0.197, whereas it’s 0.659 for the whole dataset.
I’m not saying that we have reached an equilibrium of threes and twos at about 40%, but the data suggests that we are reaching some kind of diminishing returns. At some point, the laws of physics (it’s harder to throw a ball into a basket from further out), and predictability does start to get in your way.
We’ll see where this goes - and I’m planning to look into this further using shot locations, but I don’t think the game is broken, and nor will it be any time soon.
Eye-Catchers
Kirk Goldsberry has been tweeting out these charts. This is cool, but I have just one suggestion.
This is build so that the further to the top right an entry is, the better.
If it was me, I would have built it this way (bad photoshopping warning). Rotated so that the “best” teams are up top, and the axis of neutrality is horizontal. I know it’s a little thing but to me it makes it quite a bit easier to identify net rating, rather than having to scan diagonally.
These charts by Peter McKeever is really cool. The symmetry of pitch colours, or lack thereof for some, is really interesting, as it tends to show offense and defense in a different light.
On a professional note, I’m helping to put together a data analytics course, which is one of the reasons for the massive delays on this newsletter. So that’s quite exciting. If you have particular things want to see in a course like that, pls feel free to let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Take care of yourselves. We’ve nearly made it through this stressful year.
JP
You write "This year has actually seen a precipitous drop from last year" as if it's evidence that shooting more 3-pointers isn't helping teams. But you completely fail to mention the NBA's new guidelines to referees, to stop awarding free throws to shooters who make "non-basketball moves".
That has caused the most precipitous drop in offensive efficiency in a number of years. Players such as Harden and Lillard who made a living by creating contact with the defender have been especially affected, as has the league overall.
3-points are barely a factor in this big drop-off in offensive efficiency; it's the rule changes that are the key factor.
You are on stronger ground with the analysis of the teams that shoot a lot of 3-pointers. It suggests that some teams -- the ones with a 3-point rate of 0.35 or higher -- may have reached the point of diminishing marginal returns. But that still means there are a lot of teams that should still be shooting more 3-pointers (either by simply shooting more of them, or by acquiring players who are more proficient at shooting 3-pointers).
So we may be approaching peak 3-pointers but the answer to your headline question is "no", we have not yet reached the peak.