The Transition Three
How much more do offenses rely on transition threes now than a decade ago?
Welcome back to another edition of The Starting Five. To read last week’s version, you can click/tap here.
Over the years, I’ve used this newsletter to look at some of the main trends in college basketball.
For example, back in 2019 I looked at play type trends — how isolations, ball screens, and post-ups had changed over the past decade. (Ball screen usage was way up, isolation usage was way down, post-up usage was fairly steady.)
However, there’s at least one trend that I haven’t covered in this space: The transition three.
To contextualize just how popular transition threes have become, let’s go back to the 2010 season. According to Synergy Sports data, during that season:
27% of all shots attempts in transition were three-pointers
The NCAA average on those threes was 35%
So far this season:
35% of all shot attempts in transition are three-pointers
The NCAA average on those threes is still 35%
The graph below plots three-point volume (3PA/FGA) by year. The blue line is transition three-point attempts. The red line is half-court three-point attempts.
As you can see, transition three-point volume has nearly caught up to half-court three-point volume. From 2014 to 2019, we saw rapid growth in transition three-pointers.
The efficiency of those three-pointers isn’t captured in the graph, but there was almost no drop-off. In 2014, the national average on transition threes was 35.8%. In 2019 — despite the big increase in volume — the national average was still 35.5%.