The NBA is shooting more 3-pointers than ever, as Insider's Tom Haberstroh explains in Wednesday's feature on the long battle for coaches and teams to accept the value of the 3.
In comparison to other top basketball leagues, however, the NBA is still behind when it comes to using the 3-pointer. And their experience can help us understand where 3-point trends might be headed in the NBA.
It's a 3-mad world
A record 26.8 percent of all NBA shots came from beyond the arc during the 2014-15 regular season, and that mark has climbed to 29.8 percent during the playoffs so far. But those percentages are still the lowest among major leagues worldwide. D-League teams attempted 3s on 29.9 percent of their shots this season, NCAA teams 34.2 percent and Euroleague teams an incredible 36.1 percent.
Skeptics will argue that the rise of the 3-pointer in the NBA is a trend, that the league runs in cycles and 2-point shots will eventually become undervalued. That hasn't been the case in other leagues, where 3-point rates started higher than they did in the NBA (which introduced the shot in 1979-80) and have continued to climb. Let's take a closer look, league by league.
The NCAA
The NCAA first adopted the 3-point line nationally in 1986-87, and it was an immediate hit. Because the 19-foot, 9-inch line was shorter, players didn't have to adjust their game to the distance, and teams attempted more than 15 percent of their shots from beyond the arc the first season -- a mark that took the NBA 16 seasons (and moving in the line) to reach.
The growth of the 3 was quickest in college over the first decade. By 1996-97, 3-point attempts had nearly doubled, accounting for almost 30 percent of all shot attempts. On average, this rate increased by 1.4 percentage points per year over the first decade, but by just 0.4 percentage points over the next 10 years. Still, more than one in three shots was a 3-pointer by the time the NCAA moved the line back to 20 feet, 9 inches in 2008-09. The rate of 3 attempts dropped from 34.4 percent in 2007-08 to 33.0 percent in 2008-09, and didn't increase again until this season, when it grew to 34.2 percent.
The Euroleague
The current Euroleague was created in 2000-01 as first a competitor to and eventually a replacement for a FIBA Europe-organized Euroleague. The 3-pointer, then 16 years old in FIBA play, was already a big part of Euroleague basketball. Euroleague teams have never attempted fewer than 30 percent of their shots from 3-point range.
Just like the NCAA, FIBA made a modification to the line for all international play as 3 attempt rates grew higher, moving it from 6.25 meters (20 feet, 6 inches) to 6.75 meters (22 feet, 1.75 inches). The change caused Euroleague 3-point attempts to fall by 4.0 percentage points the following season, but teams have quickly made up the gap. This year's mark of 36.1 percent nearly reached the pre-move high of 36.7 percent.
The D-League
The most fascinating comparison to the NBA is its minor league, the D-League. When the D-League expanded beyond six teams for good in 2005-06 -- the first season shown in the table above -- just 14.9 percent of all shots in the league were 3s, far fewer than the NBA at the same point (20.2 percent). That mark has doubled to 29.9 percent in less than a decade, with the D-League leaving its parent league behind in terms of 3 attempts.
In part, that has to do with NBA teams using the D-League as a controlled experiment. The rate of 3 attempts jumped from 24.3 percent in 2012-13 to 29.1 percent in 2013-14 in large part because the Houston Rockets hired Nevada Smith (who as a player led the nation in 3-pointers per game in 2000-01) as head coach of their affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. The Vipers, already playing a 3-heavy style, went to new extremes. Their rate of 3 attempts increased from 31.5 percent of their shots in 2012-13 to 46.9 percent in 2013-14.
The 3-point equilibrium
We haven't yet discussed 3-point shooting percentages. Looking at the graph above reveals something interesting: Since early growing pains in the NBA and NCAA, the percentages in all four leagues have essentially converged on 35 percent. Over the past decade, there's little separation between the best 3-point shooting league (the NBA, at 35.8 percent) and the worst (the NCAA, at 34.6 percent). This season, shooting percentages varied by less than 1 percentage point across all four leagues.
To me, this implies that 35 percent is approximately the break-even point that coaches seek -- the equilibrium where a typical 3-pointer is considered equally as good as a typical 2-point attempt. Considering the issue this way suggests that the growth in rates of 3 attempts is less about influential coaches and players and more about increasing the number of players capable of making 35 percent of their 3s -- and players capable of shooting 35 percent increasing their number of attempts.
At some point, the history of the NCAA in particular suggests that incremental increases in 3-point attempts are harder to find, possibly because defenses catch up. But the NBA still doesn't appear to be close to finding that. As teams have embraced the statistical evidence that 3s are good and more 3s are better, percentages haven't really declined. The NBA shot just 35.0 percent on 3s this season, but was at 36.0 percent as a league a season before and 35.9 percent in 2012-13. And remember, the NBA is attempting 3s at a rate similar to where the NCAA was two decades ago.
The only thing that has effectively reversed the inexorable rise in 3-point attempts elsewhere has been moving the line back. Such a change has been discussed as a possibility in the NBA, most notably by Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry last summer. However, because of the size of the NBA court in the corners, moving out the line is trickier than just repainting it on the court.
Barring an increase in the distance of the 3-point line, expect rates of 3 attempts to continue to rise, albeit slowly but steadily. The 3 has finally made it in the NBA, and it's here to stay.