What Are The Expected Points of Shooting From Each Location?
Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
With the NBA season well under way, it’s time for my first basketball analysis!
The NBA has evolved into a three-point shooting league, with 39% of shots taken in the last 3+ seasons (from 2020-2021 to the current 2023-2024 season) being three-pointers. That figure has risen steadily from just 3% of shots being three-pointers in 1980. This fact got me thinking: What are the expected points per shooting location on the field? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
The heatmap in Figure 1 illustrates the expected points, derived from the 650,000+ shots taken the last 3+ seasons.
Figure 1: Expected points by shot location on the court for all shots taken in seasons 2020-2021 to 2023-2024
Looking at the heatmap, it becomes evident that the most advantageous shooting spot is right by the basket, offering expected points per shot between 1.5 and 2 points. Following closely are shooting positions within a short distance from the basket or just behind the three-point arc, both yielding an expected points per shot solidly above 1 point.
The least favorable shot is the deep three-pointer—the scattered black data points signal that that many of those locations have gone without a single made shot.
Mid-range shots become a viable choice when superior shooting spots are heavily defended. The closer to the basket and the closer to the center of the court, the better the expected points for the mid-range shot.
If we filter out locations with only one shot attempt, we see that the deep threes are not popular, as evident from Figure 2. Those shots are reserved as emergency end of quarter/end of shot clock attempts.
Figure 2: Expected points by shot location for all shots taken in seasons 2020-2021 to 2023-2024, filtering out locations with only one shot
If we now filter out locations with five or fewer shots, we see where the league truly desires to shoot from. As evident from Figure 3, those locations are by the basket, just behind the three-point arc, and close to and in front of the basket.
Figure 3: Expected points by shot location for all shots taken over seasons 2020-2021 to 2023-2024, filtering out locations with five or fewer shots
The league has shot efficiency figured out for the most part, as players are clearly trying to avoid deep threes, deep twos, and baseline jumpers in favor of dunks, layups, mid-range shots in front of the basket, and threes right behind the three-point arc.
Now, let’s take a look at shot efficiency at the player level.
In determining the most impactful shooters from the field (excluding free throws), I considered several factors: the player's points from the field and total attempts, and the league's average shot efficiency of 1.076222 points per field goal attempt. The player's shot efficiency is computed by dividing points scored by attempts made. The crucial column, "points above average" (paa), represents the difference between the player's shot efficiency and the league's average, multiplied by the player's shot count.
As evident from Table 1, Nikola Jokic has been the league’s most efficient shooter from the field by a large margin. Superstars Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Zion Williamson are all in the top 25.
Table 1: The 25 most valuable shooters from the field from 2020-2021 to 2023-2024
As evident from Table 2, the least valuable shooter has been Russel Westbrook, who is joined by RJ Barrett, Julius Randle, Dillon Brooks, Trae Young, Fred VanVleet, and Dennis Schroder, among others.
Table 2: The 10 least valuable shooters from the field from 2020-2021 to 2023-2024
