The three-point shot isn’t as Important as you think

The Pacers three-point attempt rate has been the subject of frequent discussion. The three-pointer can be both an energetic spark and a devastating blow. But is it really the best shot in basketball, or the foundation to construct a team upon?

It’s gospel. There are three, and only three, good shots in basketball: the three-pointer, the layup, and the free throw. The reason for those three is because of percentages (no shot covers a shorter distance than a layup while no shot is less guarded than a free throw) and math (if you’re going to attempt a jump shot a three is worth more than everything else). The more you do these three things the better you are. Some teams structure their entire roster around it (the Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets), some teams are criticized for not doing it enough (the Indiana Pacers). And that’s that.

But this gospel never rang right for me, it always sounded slightly off-key. I understand that you’d have to shoot 45% from inside the arch to equal 30% from beyond it. No argument there. But it never sounded (or looked) right that basketball, a game of movement, precision, and athletic grace, is best played by standing statuesque on the perimeter waiting for the ball to find you after your defender ran away to help.

Yet that’s what you will hear from whoever read some article or listened to some podcast where a person they respect said some phrase that they’ll eagerly regurgitate. Classic groupthink, a three is “the best shot in basketball” or some other platitude that suffices for independent thought or examination. And that’s that. It was that conventional thought that I wanted to double-check, is the three-pointer the best shot in basketball, and should you build your team around it?

To be clear, I’m not trying to say that the three is pointless (it count’s for three, for the record) or that teams shouldn’t utilize it. Even the team least-dependent on the three (San Antonio) shoots two dozen per game, I’m not arguing that the Indiana Pacers should aim for less. I  just think they are overvalued and overemphasized. But what are words without evidence?

Team Building: does shooting more threes result in more wins?

This should not be a groundbreaking insight, but the most important statistic in basketball is whether your team wins or loses. Careers and legacies are defined by wins and losses. A team’s chances in the lottery are defined by the lack of wins. Teams decide whether there is hope or whether a detonator is required based on wins. Even player’s contracts are influenced by their team’s success, magnified since a free-agent on better teams attracts more eyeballs because he plays in higher leverage situations. Doing whatever leads to more wins over losses is what matters.

So, does shooting more threes lead to more wins?

On a quick, superficial glance at recent history, the answer would be yes. All four of last year’s conference finalists (Golden State, Houston, Cleveland, Boston) finished in the top eight of made three-pointers in the league. During Golden State’s four-years of Western dominance, they never finished worse than eighth in made three-pointers (2018: 8th, 2017: 4th, 2016: 1st, 2015: 2nd).

Cleveland, for their part, never finished worse than fourth (2018: 3rd, 2017: 2nd, 2016: 2nd, 2015: 4th). That would be very definitive if there was not a teensy little caveat. Not only were Golden State and Cleveland great at three-point shooting but they also had LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Klay Thompson among others on their rosters. I’m going to go out on a gigantic limb and say that Golden State and Cleveland’s recent run of success had probably less to do with the volume of made threes than whom was taking them.

Take a look at this year: The NBA’s top seven teams (Toronto, Milwaukee, Indiana, Golden State, Denver, Philadelphia, and Oklahoma City) are separated by 3.5 games. Toronto (6th), Milwaukee (2nd), Golden State (5th) and Philadelphia (7th) are in the top third of the NBA in made threes this season. Indiana (25th), Denver (24th) and Oklahoma City (29th) are all in the bottom third. Yet they all are currently the seven best teams in the NBA. The team most dedicated to shooting threes (Houston) has attempted 598 more threes than the least dedicated (L.A. Clippers), which has been good enough to place the Rockets a game behind the Clippers in the Western Conference standings.

The sporadic nature of the top of this year’s standings is more in line with the historical narrative than the last four years. Prior to 2015 the only team to win a Championship while finishing in the top five in made three-pointers was the 2013 Miami Heat. It has been much more common for teams to win championships while finishing between 11th and 13th (six times) than in the top ten (five times). Twice a team in the bottom third on the made three-point list won a championship, Miami was the most recent, in 2012, the year before their third place performance. Before Golden State made (and lost) the 2016 Finals, the last time the NBA’s best three-point shooting team reached the Finals was the 2000 Indiana Pacers.

Here’s the point, there have been great teams that shoot a lot of threes, and great teams that don’t shoot a lot of threes. The number of threes attempted (or made) doesn’t make that much of difference over the course of the season. Maximizing your team’s potential, building around your core’s strengths -no matter what those strengths are- and executing on the court does make a difference.

The better indicator of a team’s success is point differential. Point differential is when you take the points a team scores and subtract the points a team allows. Seven teams in the NBA have a point differential better than +3, all seven possess one of the nine best records in the league. Seven teams have a point differential worse than -4, all seven claim the worst seven records in the league.

All point differentials are not created equally. Take the Indiana Pacers for example. Indy has the fifth highest differential in the NBA. The Pacers also have the 24th highest scoring offense, which isn’t that big of an issue because the Pacer defense is tremendous (4.5 points per game better than the East’s second-best defense in, Boston). That gulf between Indiana and Boston is the same as the canyon between the second-best Celtics and the eighth-best Chicago Bulls. As the Pacers showed the day after Christmas in Atlanta, Indy’s offense isn’t incapable of posting huge numbers, Indiana can run with teams, they just don’t need to.

There are plenty of teams that score more than Indiana, just like there are plenty of teams that make more threes than the Pacers do, but it doesn’t matter much in the most important statistical category (wins and loses) because their defense isn’t as good. For example look at the Washington Wizards. Washington scores nearly six more points per game than Indiana does (and attempts nearly 8 more threes per game) but they also allow 16.5 more points per game than the Pacers. Washington could try to shoot more threes to make up that deficit, or they could do the other less sexy option and try to play some defense.

There are lots of ways to improve and construct a basketball team. That’s one of the beauties of basketball, there are many different styles to play the game. The best teams maximize the given talent on their roster. Golden State built a dynasty not because it could shoot more threes than other teams (the Warriors also leads the league in shooting percentage on midrange jumpers) but because they had two Splash Brothers and Kevin Durant to shoot them. If you don’t have three of the greatest shooters this game has ever seen, maybe you should just try something else. There are other ways to win a basketball game.

Is the three the best shot in basketball?

In a vacuum where a generic player could shoot any shot, yes.

But basketball is not played in a vacuum, or by generic players. It’s played by living breathing people, who have various skill sets, who try to utilize those various skillsets to take an actual basketball and deposit it through an actual net. Just because a three is worth more than a two doesn’t mean that it would maximize every player’s potential by shooting more of them.

Oklahoma City tried that with Domantas Sabonis.

The Thunder didn’t need a center -they had Steven Adams for that- what they needed was a stretch four. So OKC stationed Sabonis on the perimeter, he took 159 threes, missed 108, and was promptly traded to the Indiana Pacers.

By stationing Sabonis on the perimeter, OKC was negating nearly every natural gift Sabonis had: his court vision, his tenacious rebounding, his screening, his one-handedly developed post game. Sabonis could use none of it while waiting for a pass in the corner of the arch. Sabonis is far more effective catching the ball on the block and trying a left-handed hook shot than withering away on the perimeter.

Is the three the best shot in basketball? No. The best shot in basketball is one that is open and within the shooter’s range. This is subjective, and it should be, each player has his own strengths and weaknesses. Victor Oladipo, in the clutch quarters of games last year (2nd and 4th quarters) shot 63% on pull-up jumpers from above the free throw line. It’s his shot. I don’t care what a computer says is the best shot for some generic player. Oladipo isn’t a generic player, his best shot in key situations is what is labeled as a low-percentage shot, but it isn’t a low-percentage shot for him. Even if the shot is worth more points if Oladipo took it four feet closer to midcourt (where he shot worse in the same situations), it is always better to score points on a possession than to not score points.

But a three is worth more than a two, so it’s inherently a more valuable shot! No duh, but that’s not the point. Points, in basketball, and scoring more than your opponent is the only thing that matters. How you get them is tertiary to making sure an ever-increasing number keeps appearing under your name on the scoreboard. Players shooting whatever goes in most frequently for them ensures the team’s point total keeps rising.

In Game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, the lazy reason to blame Houston for losing that game (and the series) to Golden State was that Chris Paul was injured. Not having Paul was surely an issue. A bigger issue was that the Rockets attempted 44 inherently more valuable three-pointers, and missed 37 of them. Paul missed exactly zero of those threes. The Rockets lost by nine points. If they made five mid-range jump shots, Houston would have won the game with or without Paul.

Granted that’s overly simplistic, but my point is twofold: if the three-pointer is a fastball, it never hurts to have a breaking ball for when the fastball loses its zip; and it’s better to come away with points than without them. Three might be bigger than two, but two is a helluva lot bigger than zero.