The three point shot has been a fixture of professional basketball in the United States since the 1979-80 season when it was adopted by the National Basketball Association. But for whatever reason, it had little effect on how the game was played in the NBA for a very long time.
That's at odds with perceptions of how the game is played today, as the three point field goal seems to have become an important part of winning teams' game strategy. That change leads to all kinds of questions. Such as:
- Has it really become an important part of winning games in the NBA?
- If it has become important, what is the strategy behind it?
- When exactly did that happen?
These are the kinds of questions that sports-loving statisticians love to take on. Stand-up Math's Matt Parker presents what he learned after analyzing some 4,678,387 shots with help from Davidson College's Tim Chartier and 3Blue1Brown's Grant Sanderson and others in the following almost 24 minute video:
In case you scrolled past the video without watching, the answers are:
- Yes. It has come to affect where players even attempt to take their shots on goal.
- Because the benefit of higher points earned per shot more than compensates for the increased difficulty of making the longer shot.
- During the 2010s, when improved data analytics showed the strategy could be a winning one and was backed up by real game results.
Of course, that leads to all kinds of fascinating "what if" questions, like "How much better would the early 1990s Chicago Bulls or the 'showtime' LA Lakers have been if played the game like they do today?" Or to turn that question around, "how would a typical NBA team today playing today's game fare against these legendary teams playing their era's game?"
We don't know the answer to either question, but suspect the answers would be fascinating.
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Closing values for previous trading day.
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