Why Stephen Curry’s pull-up 3-pointers have taken over the NBA

When Stephen Curry’s historic regular season was coming to a close last year, ESPN’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss compared his 3-pointers to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook. The thought process behind it can be broken down simply: Curry hadn’t had one of his 3-pointers blocked at that point of the season — a remarkable feat seeing as he was up to 662 3-point attempts — which was reminiscent of Abdul-Jabbar using his skyhook to make the NBA’s best defenders look helpless in the 1970s and 1980s.

Although Curry’s streak ended shortly thereafter, it’s not surprising to see other point guards have since taken note of his success and added his signature pull-up 3-pointer to their game. As FiveThirtyEight recently pointed out, 17 players took at least two pull-up 3-pointers per game in the 2013-14 season. That number has risen to 26 players this season with 15 of them making at least one pull-up 3-pointer per game.

Curry isn’t even at the top of the leaderboard anymore for a shot he made famous. Both James Harden (104) and Kyle Lowry (78) have knocked down more than Curry (77) this season and there are an additional three players — Kemba Walker (76), Russell Westbrook (71) and Isaiah Thomas (61) — right behind him with at least 60 made pull-up 3-pointers.

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To understand why pull-up 3-pointers have quickly taken over the NBA, let’s take a look at how Lowry uses them to his advantage. The Toronto Raptors star is currently making 1.7 pull-up 3-pointers per game and he’s converting those opportunities at an incredible 41.9 percent clip. Considering half of his total shot attempts are coming from the perimeter, Lowry benefits more than most from the additional point the 3-point line brings.

Lowry knows to use the threat of his volume shooting from deep to create easy points for himself at the basket, too, which has helped elevate his game to the next level. Just watch what happens to David West on this possession:

There isn’t much Lowry does to beat him off the dribble. He simply turns the corner and hesitates ever-so-slightly at the 3-point line. But as nonchalant as the hesitation looks, it makes West take a step closer than he usually would because he knows Lowry will confidently pull-up for a 3-pointer that has a 40 percent chance of going in.

The key is how West is positioned when Lucas Nogueira first sets the screen on Shaun Livingston. By standing at the free throw line, he’s trying to bait Lowry into pulling-up from midrange. It’s a tactic many teams have used in recent years to slow down dynamic guards in the pick-and-roll because it keeps them out of the paint at the expense of long 2-pointers — the least efficient shot in basketball.

However, pulling-up from the perimeter makes that scheme useless. Once West realizes Lowry has a small window to pull-up from the perimeter thanks to Nogueira’s deep screen, he has to step up to take the option away. The only problem is his momentum is carrying him towards the 3-point line while Lowry’s momentum is carrying him towards the rim. For speedy point guards like Lowry, it’s all he needs to get to the basket when going downhill.

The exact same thing happens to Dwight Howard in the following video. By the time Howard reacts to Lowry’s hesitation and attempts to recover, Lowry is already in motion for a layup without a defender in sight to protect the rim. Asking a 7-footer to defend a pull-up 3-pointer means he has to step outside of his comfort zone to cover a considerable (and often impossible) amount of ground.

The Atlanta Hawks would probably live with Lowry making contested 2-pointers off the dribble and Howard would’ve had a greater chance of contesting his layup had he hesitated inside the 3-point line, but Lowry becomes practically unguardable when the defense has to respect him as soon as he crosses half court.

The reason why? There is no defense against this:

Or this:

Or this:

Being able to pull-up for 3-pointers has become a necessity for point guards nowadays. It’s no coincidence that seven of the eight point guards who were named All-Stars this season — John Wall being the lone exception — make at least one pull-up 3-pointer per game. With the position demanding strong pick-and-roll play, it’s a huge luxury to have a ball handler who can come off a screen and draw the opposing big man out of the paint by knocking down 3s in volume.

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Curry is still the poster child of these shots. Of the record-breaking 402 3-pointers he hit last season, over half were of the pull-up variety. He’s not making nearly as many pull-up 3-pointers this season (40.9 percent of his total 3-pointers compared to 54.2 percent last season), but he’s amongst the league leaders with 1.7 makes per game. If teams drop back in the pick-and-roll, he won’t think twice about making them pay.

The best way to prevent the pull-up 3-pointer is to switch at the point of attack. We saw the Cleveland Cavaliers use this strategy successfully in the NBA Finals by switching LeBron James and Tristan Thompson onto Curry, but 99.9 percent of the NBA doesn’t have the manpower to comfortably switch onto Curry and stick with him on an island. Not only can he pull-up from 30-feet, Curry has a number of moves in his arsenal and is an exceptional finisher around the basket.

To expose the mismatch, the Warriors will clear the floor for Curry to break down the big man 1-on-1. As an added bonus, they can also give the ball to Kevin Durant in the post now when a guard switches onto him if they want to. Either way, the defense is screwed.

Curry is one of the most efficient isolation scorers in the NBA this season, and he’s joined by many familiar faces: Harden scores 23.4 percent of his points in isolation, Westbrook averages 5.3 isolation points per game and the trio of Lillard, Lowry and Thomas rank in the 70th percentile or better in terms of efficiency. Each of them has mastered the pull-up 3-pointer and have the skills to exploit a mismatch when teams try their best to keep them off the perimeter.

Put them both together and you have the makings of an elite scorer.

Pull-up 3-pointers are also always available, especially when there is no limit on how far out they are taken. Players like Curry and Harden have to deal with opposing teams focusing all of their attention on them, so pulling-up in transition when the defense is on its heels is sometimes the best way for them to get an open look. Even if they don’t always pull-up, the threat alone can create a mismatch for the ball handler or their teammates by forcing a less capable defender to pick them up before their primary defender does.

While some of the league leaders aren’t converting pull-up 3-pointers at a particularly high rate, it’s still a much better option than pulling-up from midrange. Consider: Lillard only makes 30.3 percent of his pull-up 3-pointers. As low as it might sound, he’d have to shoot roughly 45.5 percent or better on 2-pointers for it to yield the same 0.909 points per shot. And to put how difficult it is to achieve that level of efficiency into perspective, midrange savant DeMar DeRozan shoots 42.5 percent on almost entirely midrange pull-ups.

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This is likely only the start of this revolution in the 3-point revolution, as Kyle Wagner described, and it’s easy to see why. When you account for the value, accessibility and effect pull-up 3-pointers have on the defense, it works in similar ways to Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook — only it takes place 25-feet away from the basket as opposed to several feet away. It has, on all accounts, become a game-changer.