Step Back 3PT Shot Analysis

Anyone who watches the Rockets will see that James Harden shoots a lot of 3’s and that a lot of those 3’s are step back 3’s. I wanted to know exactly how many of his 3’s are step back 3’s and if there’s an advantage to taking that step back for Harden and if this also applies to other 3PT shooters.

Using NBA Play by Play data for all games played in the 2018-19 season, I gathered all the step back 3PT shots and non step back 3PT shots made and missed for all players. The players below took the most step back 3PT shots in the past season ordered by makes.

Player	3PT SB Made	3PT SB Total	3PT SB %	3PT NSB Made	3PT NSB Total	3PT NSB %	%Diff
James Harden	212	542	39.11%	166	486	34.16%	4.95%
Luka Doncic	61	167	36.53%	107	347	30.84%	5.69%
Stephen Curry	41	68	60.29%	313	742	42.18%	18.11%
Paul George	29	63	46.03%	263	694	37.90%	8.13%
Mike Conley	26	59	44.07%	129	367	35.15%	8.92%
LeBron James	24	50	48.00%	87	277	31.41%	16.59%
Jamal Murray	23	58	39.66%	129	356	36.24%	3.42%
Joe Ingles	22	48	45.83%	167	435	38.39%	7.44%
Bradley Beal	21	59	35.59%	188	537	35.01%	0.58%
Kemba Walker	21	47	44.68%	239	684	34.94%	9.74%
Chris Paul	19	49	38.78%	108	306	35.29%	3.49%
Dwyane Wade	19	47	40.43%	67	214	31.31%	9.12%
Jrue Holiday	17	51	33.33%	101	312	32.37%	0.96%
Buddy Hield	17	39	43.59%	261	612	42.65%	0.94%
Damian Lillard	16	44	36.36%	221	599	36.89%	-0.53%
Blake Griffin	16	42	38.10%	173	480	36.04%	2.06%
Donovan Mitchell	16	36	44.44%	172	483	35.61%	8.83%

James Harden took an astounding number of step back 3PT this years with 542 attempts. He took and made more step back 3PT shots than non-step back 3PT shots. This is an NBA record that no one is even close to. The next closest player this year was Luka Doncic with 167 attempts, and the list of players drop considerably with Stephen at 68 attempts.

So does taking a step back before shooting the 3PT shot help or hurt these players. The answer is pretty clear that stepping back is better! The average improvement in percentage of these shots made from non-SB to SB is 6.38%. For example, James Harden shot 34% on non-SB 3PT shots but on SB 3PT shots he was 39% which is a 5% improvement. 5% on 550 3B 3PT attempts that Harden had is 28 more made 3PT shots meaning he added around 85 points this past season just by taking a step back when he took a 3PT shot. That’s over 1 more point per game that Harden scored because of the step back. Even for a sub-par 3PT shooter like Doncic who shot 31% on non-SB 3PT improved when shooting SB 3PT to 37%. Same goes for Lebron James who shot 31% on non-SB 3PT and 48% on SB 3PT, a 17% improvement! The most notable difference in percentage may be the improvement of a lethal 3PT shooter Stephen Curry. He already shot 42% on non-SB 3PT, but on SB 3PT he shot 60%! That’s a 18% improvement. If Curry decided to take step back on half of his 800 3PT attempts this past season, theoretically he could have scored 240 more points using his percentages. The only player of this list who shot a lower percentage on SB 3PT shots was Damian Lillard who only had a .5% decrease.

Looking at this data, I would think it would benefit many of the top 3PT shooters to emulate Harden from this year and take more SB 3PT. Harden and the Rockets may have already realized this advantage and took it to a new level this year. We may soon see other players do the same and raise the efficiency of the league on offense.