Mapping the NBA: To Live and Die By the Three

[NJNJ]

http://www.blogcdn.com/nba.fanhouse.com/media/2009/12/alharrington-tz-200.jpg

 

In the modern NBA, where the three-point shot has never been more effective*, select teams focus their offense entirely around the long jumper. It's not quite accurate to say gunnerism is peaking -- the evolution of the style is far from linear, with Seven Seconds or Less clearly diverging from Nellieball, and with concepts like Stan Van Gundy's set of spokes manifesting in relative isolation. (Such is life with just one Dwight Howard in the league.)

 

But not all teams follow the Book of Tré, and some who do should not. That's the purpose of this mapping project: which teams shoot more three-pointers than they ought to, and which teams would do well to take more?

 

To sort it out, I used Basketball-Reference.com to get data on three-pointer efficiency and frequency. Efficiency is simply three-point field goal percentage: makes divided by attempts. For frequency, I calculated what percentage of each team's shots were used by three-pointers. We should recognize that free throws are also shots, but we obviously need to adjust the raw free throw attempts numbers to account for two-shot fouls, technical foul shots, and "and-1s." The NBA rule of thumb is to multiple FTAs by 0.44 to get the most accurate estimate of shooting possessions consumed by free throws. In essence, every 2-1/4 FTAs counts as a shot.

 

Here's our map.

 

http://www.blogcdn.com/nba.fanhouse.com/media/2009/12/threesmap-tz-425.jpg

 

The x axis represents efficency, with teams toward the left shooting poorly from long range, and teams toward the right shooting well. The y axis is frequency, with teams toward the top taking a higher share of shots from long range, and teams toward the bottom taking threes less frequently.

Rest of the article.

[La Bomba]

I've been preaching for the last two years how badly we need a shooter. The numbers prove it.

[Cobb]

Atlanta is right there in the middle of the pack, exactly where I expected them.

[AtTheDriveIn]

First of all, the picture on the top had me laughing hard. I'm not exactly sure why.

 

 

On a more related note though, is anyone surprised to see Philadelphia mixed with good shooting teams like Portland, New Orleans, the Spurs etc? Or is this just me? From memory, aside from Kapono, they don't exactly have a three point shooter, do they? Igoudala is mediocre, ditto with Williams; Young seems to be shooting well this season from what I've seen, but nontheless, it surprised me a little bit to see Philadelphia on the 'high efficiency' side with almost no actual three point shooters on the team.

[andreusito]

I've been preaching for the last two years how badly we need a shooter. The numbers prove it.

Didn't you trade away Mike Miller?

[Check my Stats]

Pretty soon the only position that won't be capable of shooting from the outside, maybe not threes, will be the Centers.

 

I'm surprised how efficient PHX has been from 3 considering the volume they take, thought Toronto's volume of threes would be higher though.