When people bring up the mid-range debate, this post is the first thing that comes to mind.
The use of analytics in sports has been a discourse for close to half a century, but with the age of social media, it seems to have ramped up even more.
In basketball specifically, the debate centers on the mid-range: shots taken more than 5 feet from the rim, rather than only from three and at the rim.
But people are arguing about the wrong questions.
The debate isn't simply "are mid-range shots bad?" It's about balancing the numerical value of sports with the ability to watch and understand what's going on. It's attempting to contextualize data AND film.
It depends. Context matters.
For the purpose of this article, "eye test" will be a vague way of saying you can watch basketball and understand what's going on. There isn't a complete definition out there, just a general idea, and people who value the "eye test" are more likely to be fine with more mid-range shot attempts.
Instead of treating the "eye test" and analytics as two separate theologies, I'd argue they're two parts of a whole. Yin-and-yang. Not opposites, but rather two sides of the same thing.
Ross Martin recently had a viral tweet with a quote from North Carolina head coach Michael Malone, who won the NBA championship coaching the Denver Nuggets in 2023, about what types of shots he wants UNC to take.
In general, analytics and "eye test" largely both agree that getting to the rim and close as possible on 2s is the best option for an offense. The debate more surrounds whether teams should take mid-range shots or only take threes when not at the rim.
Martin's tweet had a lot of responses to it, and I want to go through some of them here. (Disclaimer - I am not trying to "dunk" on any of the responses but rather just use them as talking points. Basketball is fun and should be discussed!)
As you can see from one screenshot, Malone's comments had divided responses.
Jason Lillmars says if a player can make a mid-range shot over 50% of the time, it's a high quality shot. Let's look at the math behind it.
For simplicity sake, let's say the exact cutoff is shooting 50% on mid-range shots. Shooting 50% on a shot attempt worth a potential two points equates to averaging one point per shot. Shooting 33.33% on three pointers also equates to averaging one point scored per shot.
There were 365 D1 teams last season, meaning the median would be ranking 182nd. Let's assume that for a shot to count as high quality, it'd simply have to be a shot that, on average, can provide the 182nd best offensive output, meaning it'd be above average.
Last season, West Virginia had the 182nd best offensive rating in the country, per KenPom's "Raw Offensive Rating", meaning it isn't adjusted for opponents. Offensive rating isn't some insane analytical metric, it's simply how many points a team scores per 100 possessions. At 182nd in the country, West Virginia had an offensive rating of 108.1. This means the Mountaineers scored 108.1 points per 100 possession, equating to 1.081 points per possession.
Remember, shooting 50% on mid-range shots equals 1.0 points per shot. So a player would have to shoot 54% on mid-range shots to be equal to 1.08 points per shot.
Per Synergy, last season there were 2 players in the entirety of college basketball who shot over 54% on mid-range twos further than 17-feet from the rim while taking at least 1 per game. Kenyon Giles from Wichita State shot 56.7% on 1.7 attempts and Jordan Ellerbee of FGCU shot 55.3% on 1.1 attempts per game.
36 players shot above 54% on short mid-range shots, while taking at least one per game last season. So about one player in every ten teams shot the mid-range well enough to be an above average shot.
So does making it over half the time make it a high quality shot? Not based on the math, and there are very few players in the country who even meet that threshold.
Wouldn't that mean basically no one should shoot mid-range shots? Well, not exactly, but we'll get to that later.
Joey Moon echoed the math behind it all. At the end of the day, the objective of basketball is inherently a game where a team wins by having a larger number for their points than their opponent.
Thomas says that in the NBA you can't shoot mid-range shots, but you can in college if you have positional size. I'm going to do a bit of inferring, so I apologize if I do so incorrectly.
By saying you can succeed in the mid-range with positional size, I'm taking that as meaning taking mid-range shots that are still closer to the rim overall, somewhere around the 4-10 foot mark from the rim.
Per CBB Analytics, here were the D1 averages last season from the three tracked distances counting towards mid-range shots.
- 4-10 feet from the rim - 41.8 FG% - 0.836 points per shot
- 10-15 feet from the rim - 37.7 FG% - 0.754 points per shot
- 2s longer than 15 feet - 37.5 FG% - 0.750 points per shot
Remember, the D1 average offense averaged 1.081 points per possession last season, so even if you took only mid-range shots from 4-10 feet, on average that isn't going to work.
Last season, North Carolina was actually one of the best mid-range shooting teams in the country while being the 6th tallest team in the country. They shot:
- 4-10 feet from the rim - 42.3 FG% - 0.846 points per shot
- 10-15 feet from the rim - 39.4 FG% - 0.788 points per shot
- 2s longer than 15 feet - 45.1 FG% - 0.902 points per shot
So even while having the size advantage, the mid-range shot still didn't produce the results for UNC compared to a D1 average offense. This is another point towards the analytical approach, but hang with me for a bit. I promise we'll get to the other side of the argument.
Michael Jordan is known as the greatest basketball player of all time (or at least top 2). He's known for many things, but the mid-range shot was one of his most iconic shots, and he won 6 championships by shooting it.
The NBA has shot-tracking data going back through the 1996-97 season, which includes two seasons of MJ winning championships on the Bulls.
In the 1996-1997 season, MJ shot the following:
- 5-9 feet from the rim - 49.2 FG% - 0.984 points per shot
- 9-14 feet from the rim - 51.5 FG% - 1.030 points per shot
- 14-19 feet from the rim - 49.5 FG% - 0.990 points per shot
- 2s longer than 19 feet - 45.0 FG% - 0.900 points per shot
Link - https://www.nba.com/stats/player/893/shooting?Season=1996-97&SeasonType=Regular+Season
Basketball Reference gives us averages of similar shooting distances for the entire NBA in the 1996-97 season.
- 3-10 feet from the rim - 43.7 FG% - 0.874 points per shot
- 10-16 feet from the rim - 38.3 FG% - 0.766 points per shot
- 2s longer than 16 feet - 45.5 FG% - 0.910 points per shot
Clearly, the data shows Michael Jordan was an elite mid-range shooter that season. He won championships while having the pull-up jumper be one of his major threats.
But did he dominate because he took mid-range shots, or could he just afford to take mid-range shots because he was SO much better than everyone else at them?
The elite offense that LOVED mid-range shots
We, as people, want answers to be tidy and neat so we can speak in absolutes. But that isn't how most things work.
In relation to the mid-range debate, the 2025-26 season has maybe the single best example we could ask for.
Purdue ended last season with the #1-ranked offense per KenPom, and one of the best offenses in the KenPom era. Illinois ended last season with the #2-ranked offense per KenPom. Their shot charts look nothing alike though.
This is the age of taking shots from three and at the rim, yet, Purdue took 35.3% of their shots from the mid-range and only 24.5% of their shots at the rim. They ranked 346th in the country in rim-rate.
The chart on the left is the field goal percentage per area for Purdue last season, and it can explain a lot. Purdue simply made shots from everywhere.
Below is the points per shot generated by area for Purdue last season, compared to D1 average.
Purdue shot above average in all four shooting distances on two-point attempts, and all four had sizable differences.
From 4-10 feet away, Purdue averaged 0.108 more points per shot than D1 average while taking 10.5 shot attempts per game from that area.
If you're "pro" mid-range shots, you can use this to say how elite offenses can still create good offense out of these shots. If you're "anti" mid-range, you probably look at how much more efficient Purdue was at the rim or from three and say they should just take more of those types of shots.
But here's where I think the argument gets lost.
Defenses ALSO have all of this knowledge and try to get opposing offenses to take certain shots. It's not as simple as "an offense should shoot more at the rim" because everyone agrees that shooting at the rim is better.
Coaches can't just snap their fingers and generate the looks they want, and that's where context can get lost.
Going back to Purdue's offense, what if the threat of the mid-range shot created more OPEN looks?
The catch-and-shoot three is one of the most efficient shots in the game, but there's obviously a difference between open and contested shots.
56.8% of Purdue's catch-and-shoot attempts were classified as "open", per Synergy. That was the single best percentage in all of college basketball.
If you go strictly by the numbers, you'll find once again that Purdue should take more shots at the rim and open catch-and-shoot 3s. The data tells you exactly what happened, and it isn't lying. If Purdue took more shots at the rim or from three, they should have been even more efficient....
Assuming they were able to actually generate those looks.
But let's put it all together, and try to think through what the question really should be.
Defenses are generally fine with teams taking long mid-range shots, and it's been that way for decades. They do it because they know it's a worse shot than at the rim, and as of late, worse than an offense taking a three.
The answer is that the question itself is incorrect
The question in this debate has always been "should teams take mid-range shots or not?"
I simply don't think that's the right question.
Every single offense would take a shot at the rim or an open three every single possession, without a doubt, but that can't happen because of the defense.
What if the only reason Purdue was able to generate as many open looks from three and shots at the rim as they did was because of the threat of the mid-range?
What if defenses at some point had to decide, since Purdue was able to score well in the mid-range, whether they wanted to send extra help on Braden Smith pull-ups or TKR short rolls in the paint. If defenses have to spend more resources helping into the mid-range, wouldn't that then create more open looks?
Now, you could still argue that it doesn't matter. Even the contested catch-and-shoot 3s were more efficient on a per shot basis than a pull-up 2, based on the numbers.
I want to bring this back up. Purdue, on average, scored 0.131 more points per shot on contested catch-and-shoot 3s than pull-up 2s. They scored 0.213 more points per shot on open catch-and-shoot 3s than contested catch-and-shoot 3s.
This is why the question has been wrong all along.
I think the questions should look more like this.
Can the mid-range be used effectively enough to make defenses have to consider guarding it? If they don't guard it, can an offense shoot well enough to make them pay?
Purdue did just that on their way to having the best offense in the country. But it isn't a one-size-fits-all type of question. For some teams it'll work, for others it won't. It depends on many things.
The alternative to this would simply be putting up a three every time an offense doesn't get to the rim. However, by having the mindset of "threes or at the rim", it can encourage teams to take worse quality of threes that they normally wouldn't have.
For example, say Purdue shifted to not using the mid-range. Those shots would have to go somewhere. They'd probably generate marginally more "good" shot attempts, but I'd argue they'd also take a lot worse quality of threes that were even more contested than the ones they already took.
By taking the mid-range shots they were relatively very efficient at, it eliminated the worst possible three point attempts they could take, ones that would be pretty heavily contested. If they had taken those heavily contested threes, their percentage might have dipped so far that the mid-range could have actually been more efficient on a per shot basis.
So it's a bit of a chain of events. Because Purdue took mid-range shots that they could make, they generated a higher quantity of open looks from three, meaning they'd make more of the threes they took.
This can mean that this whole debate isn't one with a black and white response. Rather, it's a muddied gray balance of optimizing shots based on an offense's strengths and defense's weaknesses. The eye test and analytics are not opposites, but rather two things that can be optimized with each other. A yin-and-yang type of effect if you will.
Floors and Ceilings
The 2025-26 season of college basketball gave us the perfect examples for this debate. For those looking to leave this article with an absolute answer on whether teams should take mid-range shots or not, this at least could be a potential option instead of just purely saying "it depends."
As mentioned above, Purdue had the #1 offense by utilizing the mid-range as a weapon.
Illinois, however, had the #2 offense with the exact opposite approach.
Purdue took 35.3% of their shots from the mid-range. Illinois took only 19.4% of their shots from the mid-range, and most of those were inside of the paint.
Illinois wanted to not take any mid-range shots, the exact opposite of Purdue.
46.5% of Illinois' catch-and-shoot threes were open, compared to 56.8% for Purdue.
Illinois traded mid-range shots for contested threes and tougher shots at the rim. Purdue took the open mid-range shots.
And yet despite all of their differences, both offenses were incredibly elite.
This in itself shows why there isn't a specific answer to the mid-range debate. If a team is talented enough, they're going to figure out a way to be successful.
But in an attempt to not have the answer to the mid-range debate be only "it depends", this is my working theory.
Having an analytical approach of taking only shots from three and at the rim can raise the floor of a team significantly. Being able to utilize the mid-range as another weapon in an offense raises the ceiling of a team.
By using an analytical approach, an offense will generally eliminate the least efficient shots from their repertoire on a per-shot basis. This usually means eliminating the mid-range shots.
The reason this approach has become so popular is because of its ability to give stability to an offense.
It's also a bit of a philosophical idea a coach has to deal with. If a coach is preaching 3s and at the rim, players then have to make fewer decisions. They know if they can get to the rim then they should, or if they're open from three then they should let it fly. Otherwise it's keep the ball moving until an opportunity happens. Players have to make decisions with fewer options then, which can be beneficial to allowing players to react quicker to the game happening in front of them. This approach makes it easier to eliminate the worst possible possessions by giving a very clear structure.
On the other side, an offense that has the ability to beat a defense at all three levels will inherently have a higher ceiling than a team that isn't capable since they have more variety to win.
This is because defenses are also trying to force offenses into certain shots. If an offense is good at the shots the defense is trying to give up, it can cause defenses to have to alter their identity.
I want to point out though, having the highest ceiling doesn't mean that's the best team. It just means on any given night, the team with the highest ceiling COULD be the most unbeatable. Having the highest floor also doesn't mean a team couldn't also have the highest ceiling. Last season, it could be argued that Michigan had the highest floor and ceiling in the country by being dominant with an analytical approach and winning on all of the margins.
Allowing a team to operate in the mid-range can happen under two conditions.
- Players are good enough in the mid-range to warrant a defense potentially trying to take it away, thus opening up other good looks
- Coaches trust their players enough to understand what is and isn't a good shot.
For the majority of teams, coaches probably don't think their team can consistently meet both conditions, and it becomes even riskier to run a non-analytical approach against a team that is using an analytical approach because using analytics creates a wider margin of error.
That isn't to say that analytics automatically make a team a winner, it just helps make them have a baseline of being competitive. Teams still have to execute, regardless of the game plan.
Purdue's offensive success also doesn't mean that any team can execute dominating in the mid-range. Part of why their offense worked was just how lethal Purdue could be in the in between area. Defenses were forced to consider stopping those shots.
In summary, the question isn't "to mid-range or not", it should be "Can a team be good enough in the areas the defense wants offenses to shoot from to make it worth taking those shots?"
It's probably easier to find success on offense by eliminating the mid-range, but that doesn't mean teams can't find success by using it.
It comes down to context, and sometimes the answer truly is "it depends."