The Midrange
death of or resurgence of...
We thoroughly enjoyed the Midrange Theory by Seth Partnow it had that blend of enough analytics with storytelling to keep the reader engaged. Instead of summarizing the book we strongly suggest grabbing a copy from your local bookseller or off Amazon. The book did still leave a few questions in my mind as to the complete underlying reasons to the shift away from midrange jumpers. This is not to say that Partnow did not complete his hypothesis, rather that we still believe that there are different levels of movement away from the midrange jumper. NBA and University / College levels clearly have made a move away from it but have all highschool and club teams have made the same move?
We have had several conversations on this exact topic with other coaches. Generally speaking there is a drive in high school coaching to move away from the mid range and focus on high pick and roll situations (some even call out some of the more famous Spain set ups), the resulting shot is most often a 3 or a lay up. For most coaches they want a good blend of 3’s and layups depending on the make up of the team.
Has the shift in the NBA and collegiate level proven out and is it now time to say that the mid range jumper is effectively dead?
The above image (@KirkGoldsberry) shows the most common shots in the NBA, on top from 1999-2000 season and on bottom the 2022-2023 season. This image does not show all shots taken just the most frequent/common. So there are some other shots being taken but clearly in the 2022-2023 season the mid range jumper was not something that teams were looking for or even finding desirable.
Adapt or become irrelevant is an ethos that has every coach out there trying to coach teams like they are the Warriors or Rockets. In order to play this type of basketball here is what we think a team make up might require;
2+ players that consistently shoot 40-55% from three in unguarded situations. This is not 5 for 10 shooting, we mean consistently shooting game situation 3’s over 100 attempts. If you are shooting 40-55% in unguarded situations you might hit 35-40% in guarded situations.
2 strong ball handlers that are amongst the group in the bullet above. These ball handlers will have a strong understanding of pick and roll actions and can hit 3’s off the dribble side to side and north south.
from the first bullet - 1 of the 2 who is not primary ball handler can shoot going both directions, off screens and off 1-2 dribbles.
Easy enough:)