I spend a lot of time talking about the mid-range jump shot. Honestly, I spend too much time talking about the mid-range jump shot. The reason why is pretty simple. Everyone hates the mid-range jump shot. I understand why they hate it. “Analytics” tells us it is the most inefficient shot in basketball. Yes, half court heaves are more efficient because of the extra point you get from the 3 point line… I’m kidding.
All jokes aside, I’ve talked about the mid-range jump shot before, and my point is always pretty simple. It is difficult to call any shot inefficient without context. For example, good defenses tend to defend the rim and the 3 point line. This drives down your percentage or expected value from those zones. However, good defenses can’t defend every zone perfectly. Often, they will slightly concede the mid-range jump shot. It is the best outcome for them, right? They’re giving up a long shot, but the offense isn’t gaining that extra point.
Therefore, if you’re an offense playing a good defense, you want to capitalize on what the defense is giving you. In short, if you can hit a mid-range jump shot consistently, it may turn out to be your best offensive option. So while it is not the most efficient shot, in theory, it might be the best available shot in practice.
The NBA is all about the “stretch” 4 right now. That is, power forwards or bigs who can step out and hit long range jumpers. We have two very good jump shooting bigs on this team. Anthony Davis is a monster from the mid-range, and Ryan Anderson has historically been a flame-thrower from 3. This probably isn’t by accident. It seems like we are capitalizing and optimizing our players skill sets relative to one and other. That is why we have a good offense.
Anyway, I digress from my main point. I want to show how mid-range jump shooting can be a useful part of an offense. Specifically, I want to focus on the leagues best scoring forwards and Anthony Davis. Below, I have a chart of the top 20 per game scoring power forwards according to ESPN. Our favorite unibrowed big man comes in at number 1.
The column to the right of points per game is the percent of a player’s total field goal attempts that come from the mid-range area, according to NBA.com. The column on the far right ranks those players from highest to lowest percent of field goal attempts from mid-range.
Notice anything? Well, first of all, Anthony Davis is number one in scoring and number five in percent of field goals attempted from mid-range. But look at the rest of the top four scorers. All of those guys, are in the top five of percent field goals attempted from mid-range. The only player missing is Marreese Spieghts, who only averages 12.4 points a game. Of course, he is a 6th man type so this isn’t too surprising.
This table alone doesn’t tell us everything. In fact, it doesn’t even tell us a lot. All we see so far is that some of the top scoring bigs in the NBA take a lot of shots from the mid-range area. Of course, this doesn’t say much about efficiency or how their shot selection is affected by their team’s roster construction. But, we are seeing that quite a few of the best scoring forwards in the NBA earn a lot of those points from the mid-range. I guess the point is that the mid-range isn’t the boogeyman of NBA offenses. A lot of scorers take them, and some do a good job of making them. Again, a mid-range jump shot isn’t always a bad shot.
Let’s focus in on Anthony Davis for a moment. Specifically, let’s focus on the table below. Here is how those 20 power forwards rank in terms off shooting percentage from mid-range.
Davis comes in 4th at 47.51%. That is not bad. In fact, if you look at the company surrounding him it is pretty good. Also, notice that there is only one other player (Dirk Nowitzki) who is both top 5 in mid-range percentage and top 5 in scoring per game. In the set of top scoring power forwards, Davis is a standout. When we consider their game from mid-range, he is pretty much top of the class.
The Davis mid-range jump shot is becoming an absolutely devastating weapon. Compare him to someone like Lamarcus Aldridge. 357 of Aldridge’s 625 field goal attempts have come from mid-range. That is the most of any player in this data set. He is hitting those at a rate just over 40%. Davis is taking fewer shots from mid-range, but he is hitting at a much higher rate (~47.5%). Nevertheless, Aldridge is still considered to the be the gold standard for mid-range shooting bigs. You don’t hear a lot of criticism when he takes shots from out there, but the data speaks for itself. The NBA has a new big man dominating the middle of the half court, and we shouldn’t be scared of him jacking those unreasonably hated mid range jumpers. Often, it is our best offensive weapon.
14 responses to “It’s all about the Mid-Range Jumpshot”
I still hate the midrange. Davis seems to live and die by it sometimes. Just going off of the Wizards game, when he missed a few and Cunningham missed one, the offense was pretty stagnant.
Yep…AD has a few big ones he missed against the Hornets that could have made a difference
Good article Nick – really highlights how Davis is elite at his position for this type of shot.
I would be interested to see the value added by taking a three point attempt for the longer version of mid-range shots. We always discussed this with Jason Smith about how if he just took a step back it’d add so much more value. I recall Smith saying that for him it was a different because of his rhythm and the trajectory of the ball.
But talking in hypotheticals I’d still love to see Davis attempt the odd three and what value that might add (like, say attempting 1 three a games vs. what he takes now). Would be interesting to see.
How long before this town demands a new coach? Really, this is depressing, you can analyze him up and down and every which way the only thing that matters is wins which this coach does not get very many of. Never has, never will. There has to be a change. This guy has gotten a bigger pass than any coach in the history of professional sports in America. It’s one thing if you have a track record of being a proven winner and you are given time to build a team, but this guy has NEVER WON ANYTHING! Mr. Benson you owe to your season ticket holders to make a change NOW. Spark some excitement, give someone else a chance to win with this team. Mr. Williams cannot do it. Please give someone else a chance.
bigezking This post doesn’t mention Monty Williams once. I understand you’re frustrated. There are places to voice those frustrations. You should feel free to do that, but your comment doesn’t add anything to this discussion. Try to stay on topic, thanks.
jsgrayson I’ve thought about this too. I don’t know though.
Good defenses are going to force you to the midrange, so you might as well have a guy that can hit them. I also feel like putting AD at the 3 point line, even for a few plays a night, might not be the best use of his talents. I’m not sure, though. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Pels try it.
Jason Quigley You’d prefer we tell the team to not worry about defending the majority of available shots?
I’d rather there be more ball movement so that maybe so many midrange shots wouldn’t have to be taken. On a lot of plays it seems like just one or two players touch the ball, dribble around for a little bit, and shoot. I don’t see that as very good offense.
It’s great that Davis is usually able to hit this shot at a very high percentage and I’ve become more comfortable with him shooting it, but it still bugs me. 🙁
Nicks65 jsgrayson For sure. Because a lot of their pick and pop sets involving Davis leave him wide open at times. So I think they could get him a top of the three look. But that would be the most difficult three point attempt, so maybe not the best option?
I don’t know, it’s food for thought.
I do think if it’s there, take it. However as you mentioned defenses will live with it knowing it’s more difficult to hit, with less reward if you hit it.
Take last night for example – Pels had 2 FTA attempts in the second half well into the 4th Q. This happens from time to time when the Pels just settle.
Jason Quigley Yeah, it sounds like what bothers you is what you don’t see that leads to the mid range shots.
Compare Davis’ shot chart to those of Duncan and others. You’ll find that Davis is in good company.
I think the midrange game has a key place in the game, but it can’t be the only piece either.
Jason Calmes Jason Quigley The 06-07 Suns posted an Offensive rating of 113.9, which is pretty good. They took 19.5 16-23 foot mid range shots a game. The average team took 21 per game that year. Generally speaking, better offenses take fewer mid range jump shots, but they don’t take zero.
The real difference, that can be found in the numbers, is that they made more of their mid range jump shots.
If your complaint is about how we are getting our mid range shots, then that seems valid. But hating the mid range shots for being mid range shots, which many basketball fans tend to do these days, is a bit silly to me.
jsgrayson Nicks65 Right. My big concern about extending Davis to the 3 point line would be putting him in the corner. It seems like that is the best option to get that part of a player’s game developed, but it does seem like a huge cost for someone like AD.
I feel like we would have to drag him out of the offense too much. Of course, if we are eliminated from the playoffs with 15 games to go, why not?
Yeah, you guys pretty much covered it. I just don’t like the plays where a guard dribbles around for a while and then shoots a midrange and misses, and he’s the only Pelican to touch the ball. It’s really bad offense.
Maybe it’s just Gordon.
It’s probably just Gordon.
Nicks65 jsgrayson Oh if we’re eliminated from the playoffs I say shots ahoy! Deploy all the threes!
It’d be really interesting and fun to see Monty just say, “screw it, let’s be Houston and just go crazy!”