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The Pace-and-Space Revolution: How the Three-Pointer Rewired the NBA, by the Numbers
In two decades the three-pointer went from a luxury to the center of gravity of NBA offense. Here's the rewiring, charted season by season.
Numbers over noise · Est. 2026
The NBA, read through the data.
Original, data-driven NBA analysis — explainers, tutorials, and deep-dives built on public data I pull and chart myself. No invented stats, no hot takes without a table behind them.
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Latest articles
Switching Defense and Positional Versatility: The Roster It Takes
Switching kills the screen by trading men, but only if your defenders can guard anyone they land on. When and why teams switch, the personnel it requires, how switchability is measured, and the mismatch-vs-rotation trade-off.
8 min read
Drives and Paint Touches: How Rim Pressure Bends a Defense
What tracking data counts as a drive, points and passes per drive, why rim pressure forces a defense to collapse, and how the drive-and-kick converts penetration into open threes.
7 min read
The Mid-Range Shot: Why Analytics Devalued It, and Who Still Uses It
The mid-range is the least efficient zone on average, but it never died. Why shot-value math devalued it, when it's actually the right shot (late clock, vs switches), and how the expected-points framework really frames it.
8 min read
Rim Protection, Explained: Contesting, Deterring, and Why Blocks Undercount It
The most valuable shot in basketball is at the rim, so defending it matters most. How rim protection works through contesting and deterrence, why blocks miss most of it, and how tracking data measures it.
7 min read
Shot Quality, Explained: Separating Shot Selection From Shot-Making
Field-goal percentage tells you a shot went in, not how hard it was. How tracking-based expected FG% (qSQ/qSI-style) models shot difficulty and splits the looks a player gets from how well he shoots them.
7 min read
Offensive Rebounding and Second-Chance Points: The Crash-or-Retreat Trade-Off
An offensive rebound buys a cheap second-chance bucket but risks a fast break the other way. Offensive rebound rate, second-chance points, and why the modern NBA has stopped crashing the glass.
8 min read
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Six beats, one standard: every claim traces back to a number, and every number traces back to a source.
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Stat Explainers
Plain-English breakdowns of the box-score and advanced metrics that actually matter — what each stat measures, the formula behind it, and where it misleads you.
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The league's past, re-examined through modern statistics — record-setting seasons, rule changes, and trades revisited with the benefit of hindsight.
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How forecasting and win-probability models are built, why they disagree, and what the data really says about predicting basketball.