
So we’ve reached the point that you’ve been waiting for. In this post, I’m going to explain why no player should ever shoot a midrange jumper ever.
Of course I’m not really going to do that. Very few things in sports are that cut and dry. But we are going to discuss one of the important points of contention for those who are skeptical of analytics. By the end of this, you should have some pretty good answers as to why the midrange shot has fallen so far out of favor. But our analysis will also raise at least as many questions as it answers.
What does the data say?
Let’s look at this in the simplest way possible. If we take all field goals from the 2020–2021 NBA regular season, how do these shots from different locations stack up to one another?

There is a clear winner in terms of optimizing shot location. Shots that are very close to the basket are good. But the surprising thing is how quickly efficiency falls as we move away from the basket. There is a huge difference in efficiency between midrange jumpers and shots at the rim (Essentially layups and dunks).
Although 3-pointers are slightly more difficult than midrange jumpers (They have a lower FG%), they are more efficient. And this isn’t a small difference either. The average 3-pointer is .16 points per shot (PPS) more efficient than the average midrange jumper. Most NBA teams have a pace at around 100 possessions per 48 minutes. So over the course of a game, we would expect a team that shoots only 3 pointers to outscore a team that only shoots midrange jumpers by 16 points! That’s a difference too big to ignore.
Are there any exceptions?
The next step we might take to examine this question is to see if there are some players who buck the trend. In statistics, we like to aggregate things together and take averages. But we can benefit from getting more precise. After all, there are some players that we consider to be midrange specialists. So let’s see if these players tend to be more efficient from the midrange than from 3.

I looked to see how many players were actually more efficient on midrange attempts than on 3-pointers in the 2021 season. My sample only included players with at least 100 total field goals and 20 midrange and 3-point attempts. Out of these 274 players, only 21 of them were more efficient on midrange shots. That’s fewer than 8% of all players. Every other player was more efficient from 3-point range than from the midrange. And yes, this includes elite midrange shooters like Chris Paul and Kawhi Leonard.

So even though it is important for us to treat each player differently, it’s not a good idea to ignore the overwhelming evidence based on only a few players.
What this all means
The end goal of all this analysis is to inform decision making. So what takeaways can we take from this data? The obvious answer would be to take fewer midrange jumpers and more layups and 3-pointers. But it’s not that simple. There are two teams in a Basketball game, and the other team wants to prevent you from executing your game play. This means that the "best shot" on a given play might change depending on the context. What’s the opposing team’s defensive scheme? Who’s on the court? How much time is left in the game? What’s the score? These are all relevant questions when players decide which shots to take or not to take.
One way to look at the shot selection question is to realize that efficiency does not exist in a vacuum. Joe Harris led the league in 3-point percentage with 47% on 6.4 attempts per game. So one might say: "The Nets should just let him shoot a 3-pointer every single time down the court." While that would be interesting to see, every basketball fan understands intuitively why this wouldn’t work out. One of the reasons why Joe Harris is so efficient is that he tends to take good shots and leave bad shots alone. Unless the team made some drastic shift in their overall strategy, the only way for Joe Harris to drastically increase the number of shots he takes would be to take more bad shots. That in turn would decrease his overall efficiency.
All that is to illustrate the point that there’s only so much we can take from this simple analysis. We can’t tell NBA offenses exactly how they should run, but we can make some general suggestions based on the data we saw.
Don’t take long contested 2-pointers
This one should make sense if you’ve read this far. Long 2’s are the worst type of shot, and the worst type of long 2 is one with a defender in your face. With the exception of late clock and late game situations, these shots are better left alone (Unless your name is Kevin Durant, in which case every shot is open).
Perimeter players should cut out long catch and shoot 2’s
A big part of the 3-point shooting revolution has been an emphasis on the concept of spacing. Teams want to put good shooters on the floor and have them stand outside the three-point line when they don’t have the ball rather than inside of it. Why? Well the first reason is essentially what our whole analysis was about. We’d rather go for three points than two.
But there’s another reason. In general, you want players to be as spread out as possible. If players are all crowded inside the three-point line, that makes it easier for the other team to play help defense. This makes it more difficult for ball handlers and post players to get open shots. But this also makes it harder for shooters to get open and stay open. It’s much easier to close out on a 18-ft jumper than a 22-ft jumper.
Coaches should emphasize schemes that result in 3’s and layups
This one is pretty obvious. Call plays that get you good shots.
Here’s a list of what we cannot conclude based on this data:
- Players should never shoot midrange jumpers.
- Players shouldn’t practice shooting midrange pull up jumpers.
- Bad shooters should shoot more 3-pointers.
- Teams should keep shooting from deep even when they’re cold.
A couple of these may be questions that are worth studying, but they are not a result of the analysis that we’ve done.
Three pointers have done a lot to change the NBA game. They’ve also helped offenses to improve a ton. There obviously isn’t a perfect relationship between the 3’s and efficiency. However, the dramatic increase in 3-point attempts has coincided with a dramatic increase in offensive efficiency for NBA teams.

Player tracking data will undoubtedly give teams more and better tools to study the topic in more depth. Also, Thinking Basketball recently put out a great video which discusses how and why certain stars still can make great use of the midrange shot.
If you’d like to see the Python code used for this analysis, check out this Jupyter notebook. All data is from Basketball-Reference.com.
Thanks for reading!