NBA 2017-18: Top 5 Teams in Mid-Range Scoring
The style of the NBA is drastically changing. The coveted mid-range game is all but obsolete and everyone has seemed to put the fundamentals of basketball in the back of their minds.
Long-range shooting has taken over and every team across the league is placing their bets on the fact that 3 is always better than 2.
Organisations are taking numbers seriously, and are taking less mid-range jumpers. As a result, only 19% of a team’s FGA came from mid-range in 2017-18(about half what it was 20 years ago).
But there are some teams who still rely on mid-range jumpers and floaters to get buckets on a nightly basis. They have stuck to the basics and are yet to abandon mid-range from the face of a basketball court. Rather than relying heavily on the outside shot in search for an extra point, they’ve found open spaces in the mid-range, and embraced scoring from that area.
Let's go through the top 5 mid-range efficient teams for the previous season.
#5 Washington Wizards
Stats: Points percentage(2 points, Mid-range) - 16.7
Washington Wizards have been potential candidates to take over the East for some time now. But just like the fans of the franchise, the organisation itself is waiting on a breakout season.
Although John Wall was the second worst mid-range shooter(28.1%) after Ben Simmons(27.8%) last season, the team as a whole didn't perform that bad from the mid-range. The Wizards have a deep roster and the majority of them have the ability to shoot the ball well. They rely heavily on the pick-and-roll between Wall and Marcin Gortat, and that opens up space for the shooters on the perimeter or the unguarded man in the paint.
The Wizards have always struggled in stretching the floor, owing to weak long-range shooting talent. They saw the league's sixth biggest drop in effective field goal percentage and its ninth biggest drop in offensive efficiency.
"if the midrange is open, I don’t mind guys taking it,” Coach Brooks recently pointed out. “It should be open. It’s the contested, long twos early in the shot clock we’re trying to get rid of.”, he continued.