The WNBA is Making More 3-pointers Than Ever
The WNBA is on pace to break the record for three-pointers made this season. The prior record of 6.24 makes per WNBA game was set in 2012. So far in 2018, teams are averaging 6.38 threes per game. How are they doing it?
In 2013, the WNBA extended the distance of the 3-point field goal line from 20 feet, 6.25 inches from the basket to 22 feet, 1.75 inches. Prior to the change, WNBA teams were steadily increasing their number of made threes to the 2012 record of 6.24 per game. That number dropped by a quarter to 4.68 in 2013.
Reduced shooting percentages from long range did contribute to the hibernation of the 3-pointer. Shooting accuracy dropped by 7.1% from an average of 35.2% in the three years prior to the change to 32.7% in the three years after. It’s not clear that players have learned to shoot better from longer distances as 3-point percentage for the WNBA as a whole has not dramatically changed since the rule change.
The bigger impact of the rule change was on the number of attempts per game. Attempts had been increasing steadily prior to 2013 but dropped from 17.7 attempts to 14.4 after the rule change. That 3.3 attempts per game reduction was a drop of 18.6%, making it the biggest impact of the rule change.
After about two years to adjust to the new distance, the WNBA has steadily ramped up how often they shoot from deep. The league nearly set a record with 17.5 attempts per game in 2017 and are up to 19.5 so far this season. That’s 11.4% more shots from beyond the arc in 2018 than last season.
Sometimes, league averages don’t give us the full picture of what is happening in the league. Let’s take a look at the effects of the rule change on the top 3-point shooters in the league.
Even the top ten 3-point shooters in the league (with 2 or more attempts per game) dropped in accuracy by 6.4% in the three years after the rule change compared to the 3 years prior. That’s comparable to the league’s 7.1% drop. However, we don’t see such a drastic dip in attempts as we did in the rest of the league — only a 2.6% drop in 2013 compared to the 18.6% drop. So, why did the overall number of attempts decrease in the league if we don’t see that from our top 3-point shooters?
Well, in 2013, only 39 players were shooting more than two 3-pointers per game, compared to 52 in 2012. That’s a drop of 25%. In subsequent years, the that number has increased gradually back up to 54 players, which reflects the same pattern as overall league 3-point attempts in 2012–2018.
So, personnel patterns seem to be consistent with league trends. While WNBA players may not be shooting at a higher percentage in 2018 compared to the past 3 seasons, they are putting up more 3-point shot attempts. In fact, if we look at trends from before the rule change, we see that the increase in 3-point attempts has been present since the beginning of the league in 1997.
Similarly, in the NBA, 3-point attempts have steadily increased since the introduction of the shot in 1980 (except for a spike in 1994–1997 when the distance was decreased to promote scoring). The rates of growth in the two leagues even appear to be somewhat parallel to one another.
Given that history, we expect these 3-point trends early in the 2018 WNBA season to be sustainable. Furthermore, we don’t see the rate of increase slowing down, so we expect 2019 to be a record setting year as well!
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