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The style of the NBA is drastically changing. The coveted mid-range game is all but obsolete and everyone has seemed to put the fundamentals of basketball in the back of their minds.
Long-range shooting has taken over and every team across the league is placing their bets on the fact that 3 is always better than 2.
Organisations are taking numbers seriously, and are taking less mid-range jumpers. As a result, only 19% of a team’s FGA came from mid-range in 2017-18(about half what it was 20 years ago).
But there are some teams who still rely on mid-range jumpers and floaters to get buckets on a nightly basis. They have stuck to the basics and are yet to abandon mid-range from the face of a basketball court. Rather than relying heavily on the outside shot in search for an extra point, they’ve found open spaces in the mid-range, and embraced scoring from that area.
Let's go through the top 5 mid-range efficient teams for the previous season.
#5 Washington Wizards
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 16.7
Washington Wizards have been potential candidates to take over the East for some time now. But just like the fans of the franchise, the organisation itself is waiting on a breakout season.
Although John Wall was the second worst mid-range shooter(28.1%) after Ben Simmons(27.8%) last season, the team as a whole didn't perform that bad from the mid-range. The Wizards have a deep roster and the majority of them have the ability to shoot the ball well. They rely heavily on the pick-and-roll between Wall and Marcin Gortat, and that opens up space for the shooters on the perimeter or the unguarded man in the paint.
The Wizards have always struggled in stretching the floor, owing to weak long-range shooting talent. They saw the league's sixth biggest drop in effective field goal percentage and its ninth biggest drop in offensive efficiency.
"if the midrange is open, I don’t mind guys taking it,” Coach Brooks recently pointed out. “It should be open. It’s the contested, long twos early in the shot clock we’re trying to get rid of.”, he continued.
#4 Golden State Warriors
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 16.7
The Golden State Warriors are known for their success from three-point range but there is another part of their offence just as important. The infamous and inefficient mid-range shot has become a market inefficiency for them to exploit.
Midway through March last season, the Warriors were shooting 48.2% on their long twos in a season when the league average is 40.4% and were the most efficient team (0.93 points per possession) on shots between 17 feet from the basket and the three-point line.
When teams were averaging about 16 mid-range jumpers per game, the Defending Champs were averaging 20. On mid-range, the NBA averages 0.79 PPS, but the Warriors, a team stacked with incredible shooters, average 0.94 PPS.
The margin for the Dubs to pull-up for such low-value shots comes from their ability to outperform the opposition in all other aspects of the game. Their versatile arsenal of plays makes these mid-range jumpers less of a pain than what the rest of the teams bear.
#3 San Antonio Spurs
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 16.9
The Spurs always have been at the forefront of basketball analytics. In contrast, keeping in mind how quickly the league is moving to a high-volume 3-point shooting game, the Spurs, thus far, have seemed reluctant to keep up with the pace.
With the injury of Kawhi Leonard(led them to the No. 1 spot in this 3-point category in the 2016-17 season) and the signing of DeMarcus Aldridge(led the league with 553 mid-range field goal attempts last season), the Spurs have moved to a mid-range-centric offence. The Spurs rank 4th in the frequency of total shots taken from mid-range.
While much of the NBA has moved away from the mid-range shot due to its disproportional output value, San Antonio has embraced it in a way like none other.
Now in Aldridge and DeRozan, the Spurs have two of the best mid-range guys in the NBA. Needless to say, the Spurs are going to be unique in the upcoming season.
#2 New York Knicks
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 17.4
The Knicks attempted 1,850 Mid-range shots in comparison to 1,914 3-point attempts last season. This made their three-to-mid-range ratio at 1.03, which was the lowest in the league.
To put the above-mentioned statistic into perspective, Last season was the first in which every single team attempted more shots from 3-point range than they did from mid-range.
The Knicks were actually a decent shooting team last season(ranking 12th in field goal percentage at 46.4 percent), but because of their flop show from the 3-point land, they ranked 24th in effective field goal percentage
Much of the credit goes to Trey Burke whose jump shot has looked smooth since he signed his contract with the Knicks, and has a 2-point conversion rate of a sliver above 55%. During March of last season, he was shooting 75-of-148(50.7 percent) on his dribble jumpers and was the most accurate across the league (minimum: 100 possessions) during that period in time.
#1 Indiana Pacers
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 17.8
It is a well-known fact across the league that Indiana Pacers is a team that is heavily reliant on mid-range scoring. Indiana takes a whopping 19.3 percent of its shots from the 16-to-23-foot range, in contrast to Houston Rockets(high-value 3-shooting team) who took just 4.4 percent from that range.
This is clearly reflected in the statistic that places Indiana in the bottom six in both 3-point attempt rate and free-throw attempt rate.
Helping their cause, a staggering 23.3% of Oladipo’s shots have been two-pointers longer than 16 feet while the Pacers as a team had taken 19.1% of their total shots as two-pointers longer than 16 feet.
Further adding fuel is Coach Nate McMillan’s offensive philosophy, which encourages pulling the trigger quickly if a defender is allowing the solid jump-shooting team more than a few feet of space.
Indiana has launched over 100 more open and wide-open 2-point jumpers than the next closest team and simply put, aren’t in the business of turning down open looks - even the ones thought to be the least efficient.
Guess the Lakers players!
