Beyond 26 feet, the number of shots taken and the average shooting percentage decline sharply and consistently, as every NBA player aside from Stephen Curry loses his ability to knock down the longest of long-range shots. There were more shots from 24 feet than any other spot on the court except right at the rim (21,711 shots) and 1 foot away from the basket (22,794 shots). That figure more than doubled to 9,530 at 23 feet from the basket, then more than doubled again to 19,641 from 24 feet. There were 4,727 shots attempted this regular season at a distance of 22 feet from the basket. More predictably, the number of shot attempts skyrockets at the 23-foot and 24-foot marks, where shooters position their toes just behind the 3-point line. You might be surprised-we were-to see that NBA players shoot roughly the same percentage (somewhere in the range of 37 to 42 percent) at every increment between 3 feet and 22 feet from the basket. Or the NBA could go in the opposite direction and do something a bit more radical: introduce a 4-point shot. If the league does believe 3-point shooting is getting out of control, it could always move the 3-point line back, as Mark Cuban has suggested. It’s possible that the NBA thinks this is perfectly fine-more 3s mean higher-scoring games, after all. The rate of 3-point attempts has increased each of the last six seasons, and there’s no reason to think that trend won’t continue. As SB Nation pointed out, Curry made more 3s this regular season-402-than any team made in a single season for the first 15 years of the 3-pointer’s existence. This year, NBA teams averaged 24.1 3-point attempts per contest. In 1979–80, when the league introduced the 3-pointer, teams averaged 2.8 attempts per game from beyond the arc.

The 3-point shot has changed the NBA, and those changes have accelerated in the last few years as teams have come to understand the game’s simple mathematics. These sorts of statistical anomalies are no longer all that anomalous.

Will there be a prototype 3 2016