Centers are shooting 3-pointers at a rate we’ve never seen before
While the 2017-18 season is still incredibly young, the NBA is on track to set a record for 3-point attempts yet again. The last time the NBA saw a decrease in that regard was following the 2009-10 season when the league average dipped by an ever-so-slight 0.1 3-point attempts per game. It then increased incrementally over the next five seasons before exploding to 27.0 3-point attempts per game in 2016-17 and 28.9 3-point attempts per game this season.
There are a number of reasons for the rise in 3-point attempts, Stephen Curry’s impact on the game being one of them. But perhaps the most notable is the development of the league’s big men, who are launching 3-pointers at a rate we’ve never seen before. According to NBA.com, centers combined to make 553 3-pointers and attempt 1,512 3-pointers in the 2010-11 season. With around 15 games played for each team this season, centers have already totaled 373 made 3-pointers and 1,066 attempted 3-pointers.
Games missed due to injury or rest aside, centers combined to make 8.4 3-pointers and attempt 23.5 3-pointers per game in 2010-11 compared to 30.5 made 3-pointers and 90.1 attempted 3-pointers per game in 2017-18. Whereas three players were largely responsible for the former — Channing Frye, Matt Bonner and Andrea Bargnani made 5.0 3-pointers and attempted 12.6 3-pointers per game — there are now 27 centers attempting at least one 3-pointer per game.
Four years of the data is slightly skewed due to the inclusion of Kevin Love as well. Basketball-Reference estimates Love logged 65.0 percent of his minutes at power forward and 35.0 percent of his minutes at center with the Timberwolves between 2011 and 2014, but NBA.com has him listed as both a power forward and center in those four seasons. He’s then listed as only a power forward between 2014 and 2016 despite the fact he has spent a higher portion of his minutes playing center with the Cavaliers (43.0 percent) than he did with the Timberwolves.
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Removing Love’s 3-pointers from the list therefore means there’s less fluctuation before the floodgates opened in 2016-17. The same goes for Patrick Patterson in 2012-13 (4.0 percent of his minutes at center) and Serge Ibaka in 2012-13 and 2013-14 (14.0 percent of his minutes at center), although it’s worth noting the NBA currently lists Kristaps Porzingis (4.0 percent of his minutes at center) and Anthony Davis (25.0 percent of his minutes at center) as forwards and centers this season.
Nonetheless, there are several centers who have gone from never shooting 3-pointers to make it a bigger part of their game. Dewayne Dedmon, for example, entered the season with only one career 3-point attempt. He’s already taken 18 in 14 games this season, making seven of them. Then there’s the likes of Nikola Vucevic, who went from averaging 0.3 3-point attempts per game in his first six seasons with the Magic to 4.4 3-point attempts per game this season. He’s now making as many 3-pointers as Bradley Beal, Allen Crabbe, J.R Smith and Trevor Ariza.
Vucevic won’t convert 40.3 percent of his 3-point attempts all season long, but a dip in shooting efficiency won’t likely discourage him from taking a handful of 3-pointers per game because of how good of a shooter he’s been to this point in his career. Like DeMarcus Cousins, Marc Gasol, Brook Lopez and Al Horford — four big men who have seen their 3-point attempts rise in recent seasons — Vucevic has long been comfortable operating from midrange: 26.1 percent of his career shot attempt were long 2-pointers heading into this season, and he shot 44.1 percent on those opportunities. The difference this season is he’s taking a couple of steps back: 18.6 percent of his shot attempts are long 2-pointers and 30.3 percent are 3-pointers.
That has a significant impact on the Magic’s offense. Vucevic has spaced the floor in the form of mid-range jump shots in the past, but being a threat from the perimeter opens up even more opportunities for his teammates. Whereas teams will generally live with giving up mid-range jump shots — Vucevic would have to shoot a dismal 29.4 percent from the perimeter for it to be less valuable shot than the long 2-pointers he’s feasted on throughout his career — 3-pointers present a much greater risk to the defense, which means they are more likely to close out on the shooter.
With that shooter being the center, it opens up the paint for drives and cuts without the opposing team’s best shot blocker being in position to protect the paint:
The flip side is teams will live with players like Dedmon — someone who has attempted 83.2 percent of his career shots within 10 feet of the basket — standing on the perimeter if it prevents a more capable scorer from getting to the basket. However, what we are seeing this season is teams are giving those centers the green light to shoot because of the potential impact it has on their offense. Either opposing teams will begin to respect them from distance and close out on them or they will continue to get these sorts of uncontested looks:
The tactic worked for the Hawks in particular in the opening round of the 2014 playoffs. Facing off against the No. 1 seeded Pacers, the Hawks built a game plan around Pero Antic standing on the 3-point line to lure Roy Hibbert, who finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting that season, out of the paint. While Antic shot only 12.0 percent from the 3-point line in the series, the Hawks were 3.8 points per 100 possessions better offensively with him on the floor because of how his 3-point shooting opened up the court for others. The only Hawks with a higher net rating was Shelvin Mack and three players who combined for 27 minutes played.
“Even though Pero wasn’t a great 3-point shooter, we told him to shoot it because we needed Hibbert out of there,” former Hawks assistant coach Kenny Atkinson told NBC Sports. “That was the only way we were going to score.”
What we’re seeing now is an evolution of that game plan, only on steroids.
Where the development gets interesting is with centers who combine volume 3-point shooting with the skills to create for themselves and others off the bounce, as is the case with Cousins. With an average of 7.6 3-point attempts per game, Cousins is shooting more 3-pointers than Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving, Mike Conley, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant so far this season. And while he isn’t necessarily the most efficient player in those situations, he’s good enough to draw opposing centers out to meet him, giving him more space to work with in isolation.
It’s partly why Cousins currently leads all centers with 10.0 drives per game, a rate higher than Kyle Lowry, Eric Gordon, CJ McCollum, Tyreke Evans and Victor Oladipo.
Based on how much more time centers are spending on the perimeter, it should come as no surprise that teams are relying less on post-ups this season. According to NBA.com, teams combined for 220.6 post-up possessions per game last season compared to 207.3 post-up possessions per game this season. There are actually more teams with 10.0 or more post-up possessions per game so far this season — the Knicks (12.5), Spurs (11.9), Pelicans (10.7) and Cavaliers (10.2) are leading the way — but it’s balanced out with a third of the league averaging less than 5.0 post-up possessions per game.
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To what extreme those trends continue will be interesting to monitor in the coming years. The next wave of big men in the NBA are starting to come into their own — think Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid — which puts the pressure on future draft hopefuls to develop similar skills and build on them. It’s unlikely to reach a point where post-ups are a last resort for teams on offense, but 3-point shooting is clearly becoming a necessity for the league’s tallest players.
All stats are up to date as of Tuesday, Nov. 14.