ESPN writer says NBA 3 pt line would have to be pushed back 2 ft to being back midrange and postups

goatmane

goatmane

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Lots of dumb ideas like legal goaltending on 3s and have teams make their own custom 3 point line




Editor's note: The following excerpt from the new book "SprawlBall: A Visual Tour of the New Era of the NBA," by ESPN NBA analyst Kirk Goldsberry, has been updated and edited for length and clarity.

As the second round of the NBA playoffs kicks into high gear, the most star-studded series features two unprecedented MVPs in James Harden and Stephen Curry. Both players leveraged the power of the 3-point shot more than any superstars in league history.

Consider these factoids:

  • Prior to 2015-16, no NBA player had ever made 300 3-pointers in a single season. That season, Curry sank 402.

  • At age 29, Harden is already the all-time leader in unassisted 3-point makes.
By drawing their line at, say, 26 feet, they would emphasize their skills while challenging their opponents to swim in the deep end.

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The data-driven line
Here's an interesting fact: An average NBA field goal attempt is worth almost exactly one point. What a magical analytical convenience! This one-point average is very helpful as we compare and contrast efficiency across teams and players, not to mention shot types.

NBA playoffs on ESPN/ABC[/paste:font]
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But what if we used that baseline to optimize the placement of the 3-point line? What if the actual shooting and scoring abilities of NBA players informed the layout of the league's playing surface? For generations, the league has adjusted its playing surface as a way to make sure the game remains as entertaining and competitive as possible. In the so-called Moneyball era, when every team in the league has begun to leverage data to strategize, the league itself has opportunities to do the same thing.

The invention of the 3-point line made 33.33 percent a sort of magical number in NBA analyses. Anyone who can make a third of their 3s can turn 3-point shots into one point on average. It's the same as making half of your 2s. But as a generation of shooters has warmed up to long-range shooting, NBA shooters are making 36 percent of their triples, and specialists regularly convert over 40 percent of them. That's the same as making 60 percent of your 2s.

That slight increase in efficiency and the major increase in the population of players who can achieve that efficiency at high-volume levels are two defining drivers of the SprawlBall era.

For individual players, these efficiency upticks may seem small, but at the league level they're massive. When a whole population of shooters are sinking 36 percent of their 3s, the economic behaviors of shot selection at the population level completely change. There was a time when 3-point shots weren't the smartest jump shots on the floor for most shooters in the league. That time is gone now. Also, we now have data and analyses capable of mapping out with great precision where NBA shooters make and miss. These maps should inform how and where the league places its 3-point line.

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It's a logical approach based on the guiding principle that shots get harder with distance (duh!) and field goal percentage decreases. Using contemporary shooting data, we can estimate where the line would have to be for the league to convert exactly one third of its 3-point attempts.

Consider the 2017-18 season. By studying league averages at different shot distances, we can hone in on where the league as a whole made about one-third of its 3s. As you can see here, the shortest 3s -- those short ones in the corners -- went in over 39 percent of the time:

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But the graphic doesn't answer this key question: Where would the line have to be so that the cumulative set of NBA 3-point tries would go in 33.33 percent of the time? That's a hard question to answer, but by studying the nearly 70,000 non-heave 3-point tries from 2017-18, we can make an estimate. During the 2017-18 season, excluding heaves, NBA shooters made exactly 33.33 percent of their 3s from beyond 25.773 feet, a distance almost exactly two feet beyond the current line.

So why not place the line there?
 
goatmane

goatmane

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One cool thing about this approach is that we could refresh it annually. As shooters change, so could the line. Why not conduct this survey and delineation process after every season? Every summer we could look at the previous season's data and redraw the line based on empirical data. We could forever make 3s worth about one point around the league. Everybody's 3-point percentage would suffer, but the league's best shooters would still be valuable. In fact, they might be way more valuable.

As the shot got farther out, players who could hit it 37 percent of the time would remain among the most prized commodities in the league. And make no mistake, Curry would still be among the most valuable players in the NBA. In 2017-18, 36 shooters tried at least 100 3s from beyond 25.773 feet, but only one converted more than 40 percent of them. Curry made a ridiculous 43.6 percent of 172 3s from beyond that hypothetical data-driven line. His ability to be that good from that far out would make him stand out even more than he currently does in the sea of basic bros hitting 40 percent or better from the conventional distance.

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As it currently stands, many of the league's most active spot-up guys are only marginally efficient, and moving the line back two feet would make them even less so. Suddenly the population capable of making 3s efficiently would decline, and the league would have to restore attention to the 2-point areas and the players who could succeed there. Nikola Jokic may have to give up his stretchy ways and bang around the blocks more often. Some 3-point specialists would lose playing time, fadeaways would rise again, and the diversity of shot selection would surge. Some midrangers would be cool again -- at least for some players. Many 3-point shots would be dumb shots. And it would all be due to analytics.

Man, Daryl Morey bitten by his own snake.
 
goatmane

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The corner 3
Ray Allen's incredible 3-point shot in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals was arguably one of the great shots in league history. But here's the thing: That place where Ray took the shot from -- that little spot along the baseline where the 3-point line is straight -- is generally regarded as the "smartest jump shot on the floor."

In fact, that place might actually be the silliest shot on the floor. The corner 3 is based on an analytical loophole, a seemingly minor decision in 1961 that now influences almost every half-court possession in the NBA.

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If you watch the game these days, you'll see almost every team station at least one, often two, players in the remote corners of the offensive chessboard. The rooks in the corners are a signature part of the SprawlBall era. All they do is stand around waiting for shot opportunities that usually don't come. So most of the time 20 to 40 percent of offensive players in the NBA are just standing around picking dandelions like little league right fielders. But unlike 10-year-old outfielders, who rarely affect the game, even when these rooks don't get a look, they influence most possessions by stretching out defenses and preventing help defenders from helping. They keep defenses honest, and they accomplish all of this by standing still.

The stationary rooks in the corners effectively turn many NBA possessions into three-on-three. The cornermen and their defenders are reduced to bit players -- unless of course one of the rook's defenders dares to play help defense on a driving player after a ball screen. In that case, a future corner 3 happens via the drive-and-kick.

But is this interesting? Is it good for the league to place such a high value on two stationary shooting specialists camping out in the corners? Maybe, who knows. But one thing is for sure: Outside of dunks and layups, rooks in the corners are yielding the cheapest points on the chessboard, and the numbers leave little doubt that the league is now chock-full of guys who can drain these shots at such high rates that teams would be crazy not to station them every time down the floor. Moreover, the ability to make that shot is now a prerequisite for almost every off-ball player in the NBA. But does anyone go to NBA arenas to watch these guys stand still in the corners?

One simple way to bring more movement back into the game and breathe more life into the 2-point area is to make it a little harder on these loitering bros along the baseline. Drawing a consistent 23.75-foot 3-point boundary wouldn't completely eliminate baseline triples, but it would get rid of the loophole 3 -- the corner triple with a shot distance of between 22 and 23.75 feet.

Loophole 3s not only account for a vast majority of all corner tries, but they're also the league's favorite 3-point shooting location by a landslide:

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So what would happen if we eliminated the loophole 3?

1. By shrinking the spot-up habitat for corner-3 shooters, we'd make their lives harder and their shots longer. Womp, womp. In turn, that would disincentivize loitering. A consistent 23.75-foot arc would easily fit within the current court. However, it wouldn't leave much room for spotting up. These tall fellas with big feet would have to slide up or down along the arc before they could find enough space to comfortably spot up, and even then they'd need more balance, more skill, and better offensive timing to generate corner 3s. This simple change could make the game more exciting and the NBA's shot economy more fair.

2. The most annoying side effect might be a lot more foot-on-the-line moments. This would mean more tedious reviews, which nobody would like. Incidentally, we could also widen the court from 50 to, say, 54 feet, but that would cause major nightmares for every arena manager in the league and force them to reconfigure their entire seating plan.

3. We would see a slight reduction in shooting efficiency from the corner.

4. We would incentivize other kinds of behavior on the offensive end. Fewer rooks, more bishops, knights, etc. How do we create the perfect blend of perimeter action, slashing drives, post-up actions, and fast breaks? That's a hard question, but one way to reduce loitering on the perimeter is to enact the same rules the league has applied to interior players. For instance, what if we simply added the three-second rule to the corner-3 zone? We could encourage movement on the perimeter and discourage all that standing around.

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