By Antigoni Zachari/ info@eurohoops.net
It’s no secret that Spanish clubs take pride and put great effort into their efficiency from the three-point line. High-scoring games and spectacular triples are the norm, but one team has managed to take the art of three-point shooting to the next level this season.
Herbalife Gran Canaria is making the most three-pointers on average in EuroLeague Basketball history (both EuroCup and EuroLeague), with 12.58 made threes on average over 12 games so far. To put that into perspective, Khimki Moscow Region holds the EuroLeague record with 11.14 three-pointers per game last season, while Anadolu Efes sits next in line with 11.04, also in 2019-20.
The three-point shooting trend has bloomed in the NBA during recent years to the point where this has become the greatest asset for most teams. While it certainly helps to be tall in basketball, efficient shooting and the three-pointer, especially, will continue to be one of the most dominant elements of the game in the near future.
Taking a look at the NBA’s overall three-point efficiency, the Houston Rockets hold the all-time record with 16.13 made threes on average in the 2018-19 season. That number may seem unapproachable at this point, but taking into account the shorter game time in Europe, with 40 minutes per contest as compared to the NBA’s 48, it’s obvious that a change is happening — and Gran Canaria would seem to be at the vanguard here.
Quite symbolically, Gran Canaria, the second biggest of the Canary Islands, standing right in-between Europe and North America in the Atlantic Ocean, could merge this gap and set an example of devil-may-care shooting mentality in Europe.
In 12 games, the team has put up 373 shots from beyond the arc and made 151 of them, for a league-best success of 40.8%. Stanley Okoye leads the team with 74 threes attempted (33 made), followed by Tomas Dimsa’s 56 (29 made) and Andrew Albicy’s 44 (18 made). Just these three players have accumulated 174 attempts, as compared to the team totals for other Top 16 competitors like Buducnost (233 attempts) or Boulogne (247). What’s more, those 373 three-pointers attempted by Gran Canaria are just 22 fewer than the team’s 396 two-point tries. But there is good reason for Gran Canaria to let it fly from the arc: its shooters ranks second among all EuroCup teams in three-point success rate, at 40.48%.
As much as the team’s offensive game is ruling EuroCup, could shooting nearly as many three-pointers as two-pointers ever be the norm for Europe? From a statistics perspective, we have a long way to go. It took years and different generations of players for three-point shooting to become the “rule” in the NBA. The game evolved from a bunch of players shooting threes back in the ’80s to only a handful who cannot shoot them in the modern era.
In a similar fashion, European basketball has grown out of its strict defensive game which was the trend in the ’90s to actually put more weight on shooting from afar over the years. Teams rely more and more on their sharpshooters and Gran Canaria coach Porfi Fisac has been one of the pioneers of this notion, as he is known for giving space to his players to shoot at their heart’s content from the three-point line. He has done that during his time in Zaragoza and continues to do so in Gran Canaria.
The big deal for Gran Canaria or any team that aims to live for the three-pointer is to find a balance between the offensive and defensive end. So far in the Top 16, we’ve seen UNICS Kazan matching the Spanish team’s attempts and “paying” them with the same coin from the three-point line, powered by their defense at the same time. However, the overall impression remains that a red-hot backcourt can destroy even the most solid defense on any given night. And that will count in favor of Gran Canaria as the battle for the quarterfinals heats up.
It remains to be seen if the Spanish team has achieved this season can be the beginning of EuroLeague and EuroCup clubs investing more in the game from downtown.