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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.
On air · 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
The Back-to-Back Penalty: What Tired Legs Cost in 2023-24
Reconstruct every team's schedule from the dates and the cost of a back-to-back is clean: a tired team vs a rested one won just 41.9% (margin -2.8); the rested side won 58.1%. But when both teams are tired it's back to 50/50 — rest is a differential, not a state.
8 min read
How Often Does the Better Team Win in the NBA?
The better team (by net rating) won 67.9% of 2023-24 games — but that hides a steep gradient: a near coin-flip (55%) in toss-ups, up to 81% in mismatches. How deterministic the NBA is depends entirely on the talent gap.
8 min read
Are NBA Win Streaks Real or Just Randomness?
Rebuild every team's 2023-24 win/loss sequence, count the streaks, and compare to a world with no momentum — just weighted coin flips. The real streaks land almost exactly on the random null: good teams streak because they're good, not because winning begets winning.
8 min read
Does Offense or Defense Win in the NBA? What Net Rating's Two Halves Say
"Defense wins championships" — but in 2023-24, offensive rating predicted wins better than defensive rating (r 0.87 vs 0.75). The real correlations across all 30 teams, why net rating (r 0.98) settles it, and the limits before you believe a one-season result.
8 min read
How Often Is an NBA Game Actually Close? The 2023-24 Margin Distribution
In 2023-24 the single most common kind of NBA game wasn't a nail-biter — it was a 20-point blowout. The real distribution of 1,231 final margins, why it clashes with the vibe, and what it does (and doesn't) say about competitiveness.
8 min read
Where the NBA Actually Shoots From: 25,000 Real Shots, Mapped by Zone
Drop 25,000 real shots onto the floor and 69% come from just two places — the rim and the arc. The mid-range has collapsed to one shot in nine. A from-scratch shot-location analysis with the real distribution, points per shot by zone, and the chart that explains it.
9 min read
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