As the analytics community grows, one of the most common debates in basketball is the role of the mid-range jump shot in the modern NBA.
While those arguments are tired at this point, the data suggests that the league is increasingly moving away from the mid-range game. But at the same time, the mid-range game is not going to go away any time soon thanks to the style of play from several stars around the league.
To determine which players are keeping the mid-range game alive, we looked at three factors and then compared how each individual performed relative to the league average in the same span:
- Output: To determine just how prolific someone was from mid-range, we pulled total field goals made outside four feet but from inside the three-point line per 100 possessions.
- Shot dependency: We examined how often a player’s shots came from everywhere on the floor except at the rim and beyond the arc.
- Efficiency: This is simply the field goal percentage a player had on their short mid-range and long mid-range attempts.
It is worth mentioning that longtime NBA fixtures who recently stepped away from the game (e.g. LaMarcus Aldridge, Tony Parker and Shaun Livingston) would have likely made this list if they were active and had not yet retired.
But in their absence, the following players are working the hardest to keep the “in-between” alive in the NBA.
All data is from PBP Stats unless noted otherwise. Shot charts are via Positive Residual.