Mid-range field goal percentage hit an all-time high of 42.0% last season.
NBA basketball returns Oct. 24. We are counting down the days like the seconds on a shot clock — literally, that’s what we’re doing. As of Oct. 1, our writers will list 24 storylines heading into the 2023-24 NBA season.
A new storyline will drop each day. Here is No. 10:
The NBA’s offensive efficiency was at an all-time high last season. Here’s why it should continue to rise.
League-wide efficiency has been trending up for the last eight years, climbing from 104.7 points scored per 100 possessions in 2014-15 to 114.1 per 100 last season. And the jump from 2021-22 (111.4) to ’22-23 was the biggest season-to-season jump in the last 18 years.
Interestingly, that big jump came with a drop in the percentage of shots that came from 3-point range. It was the first time in 12 years that the 3-point rate didn’t go up. But while offenses were shooting fewer 3s, they were doing some other things much better …
- Offensive rebounding percentage was the highest in the last eight seasons.
- 2-point percentage, which has risen in each of the last eight seasons, reached an all-time high of 54.8%, and the value of a 2-pointer (1.10 points per attempt) was higher than the value of a 3-pointer (1.08) for the second straight season.
- Free-throw percentage was also the highest mark in NBA history (78.2%). And the league-wide free throw rate (26.6 attempts per 100 shots from the field) was the highest mark in the last six seasons.
So the big jump in efficiency was mostly about greater success inside the arc. And while mid-range field goal percentage hit an all-time high of 42.0%, the percentage of shots that came from mid-range hit an all-time low of just 11.8%. So it’s mostly about what’s happening in the paint.
Protecting the basket has always been the No. 1 priority of defenses. But it’s become more difficult with how much skill offenses are putting on the floor and how much they’re spacing the floor these days.
Neither of those things are going to regress any time soon. And after years of de-emphasizing offensive rebounding, teams are realizing that there are extra points to be had on the glass. So while we may not see another jump like we did last year, there’s a good chance that league-wide efficiency will continue to rise.
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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