The catch-and-hold jumpshot

The NBA’s SportVU player tracking statistics have given us a wealth of information to play with, particularly around field goal attempts where we can now see information like the number of dribbles taken, the shot distance, and defender distance. With jumpshots, the information provided on the SportVU shot dashboards are conveniently divided into two categories — pull-ups and catch-and-shoot. Pull-ups are defined as shot attempts from at least 10 feet away from the basket, where the player took at least one dribble. Catch-and-shoot attempts are defined as shot attempts from at least 10 feet away from the basket, where the player took no dribbles and held the ball for less than two seconds. However, there is a small sliver of space between those two categories — what I’m calling catch-and-hold — shot attempts from at least 10 feet away from the basket where the player took no dribbles but held the ball for longer than two seconds.

If you want to visualize one of these shot attempts, picture Kobe Bryant catching the ball in the mid-post, jab-stepping his defender to the point of boredom, before launching a contested fadeaway. Parsing the SportVU shot data from this season I found 1451 of these catch-and-hold attempts and Kobe is indeed among the league-leaders this season.

As you would expect, the list is populated by low-post bigs and perimeter players who spend a lot of time in the mid-post. In general, these attempts tend not to be a very efficient choice — yielding a league average effective field goal percentage of 39.0 percent so far this season, as compared to 40.5 percent for pull-ups and 51.9 percent for catch-and-shoot. However, the relatively poor value as compared to catch-and-shoot jumpers has a lot to do with the split between two-pointers and three-pointers. Just over 70 percent of these catch-and-hold jumpers are two-pointers, while only about 30 percent of catch-and-shoot attempts come from inside the arc. And as you would expect, the relative efficiency has a lot to do with who is taking the shot.

It stands out quite a bit that the top two individual players on this list happen to be from the same team. In fact, if you parse the data by team instead of player the Memphis Grizzlies do come out on top by an enormous margin.

The Grizzlies have attempted just a hair under as many catch-and-hold jumpers as the second and third teams on this list combined. Their efficiency is roughly average, certainly not enough to justify this shot being such a large part of their arsenal.

These scenarios seem like they could be one of those things, like the hot hand, where cognitive dissonance may skew the shooter’s perception of what is and what isn’t a good shot. By holding the ball, the shooter may feel like they are getting their balance, squaring their body, doing all the little things that will help lead to a more makeable shot. But the numbers show that, in general here, the advantage is dramatically with the defense. If you can’t shoot it right off the catch, driving or moving the ball to a teammate is probably the best play, no matter how confident you are in your ability to size up the defender and shoot over the top. Unless you’re Dirk Nowitzki, then all bets are off.