Kevin Durant was shooting and knocking down mid-rangers in Georges Niang’s face but the latter wasn’t backing down. It was in a game where the Cleveland Cavaliers were cruising to victory against the Phoenix Suns last year.

As the two were making their way back down the other end of the court, Niang felt the need to say something.

“You need to shoot more threes!” Niang barked at Durant.

Durant, ever the man to hit reply, hit Niang back with, “No, these dudes around me need to shoot more threes, I need to play my game.”

The thinking on Durant’s part, as he explained to LeBron James and Steve Nash on the?Mind The Game podcast, is that mid-range shots are good for him and not his less efficient teammates who need shots created for them. It’s when he is able to draw enough attention from the opposition that teammates need to be ready to catch and shoot.

Durant is one of the greatest offensive talents the league has ever seen and his game has become synonymous with efficiency. He hasn’t shot under 50 percent from the field since 2011-12 and even that was 49.6 percent. Specifically from the mid-range, Durant has shot at 49 percent from the field in each of the last nine seasons.

He is the game’s eighth all-time leading scorer and James called him the most equipped scorer the league has seen.

But does Niang have a point? Does the newest member of the Houston Rockets not shoot enough threes?

Durant’s Underwhelming 3-Point Volume

There is no arguing that Durant is always the best option on his team to take shots from the mid-range. At the same time, though, for as brilliant a jump shooter he is from anywhere on the floor, the numbers suggest he’s probably undervalued his own three-point shot.

He’s a 39 percent three-point shooter for his career but has averaged just five attempts per game for his career. LeBron James, who only improved his outside shooting in the latter half of his career and is still a level below Durant in shooting efficiency, averages 4.7 attempts per game for his career. He’s shot 34.9 percent for his career.

The most three-point attempts Durant has ever averaged for a season is 6.7 in his final season with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now, one can understand if that number didn’t improve next to the likes of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson in Golden State, but it really ought to have since.

Below is a graphic from this season comparing Durant to other forwards in the league this past season. Durant is obviously a singular talent but I wanted to slot him alongside other forwards who have some level of self creation and see where he stacks up from three-point range. With that in mind, I didn’t include the likes of OG Anunoby and Cameron Johnson.

Tatum is a good example of someone stepping outside of his comfort zone because of what his team is trying to accomplish. Would he rather operate in the mid-range? Probably.

Brandon Ingram is another player who has preferred to operate in the mid-range and, albeit with a small sample size, made a concerted effort to shift his shot spectrum and take more threes this season.

Why Is Durant Shooting Fewer Threes?

The fact that Durant has the best percentage in this group but eighth in terms of attempts per game tells a story. There have been stretches in both Brooklyn and Phoenix where he’s had to elevate his playmaking. The Nets infamously went stretches without Kyrie Irving during covid while the Suns didn’t prioritize having a point guard until last season.

Last season, though, the Suns did have Tyus Jones in the mix. They have also leaned on Booker more than Durant for playmaking. Point being, Durant slipping into the mid-range whether it be for playmaking or scoring purposes is the least of all evils for opponents.

Breaking things down further, 48.4 percent of Durant’s shots came in the mid-range (10ft. – 3pt line) last season. Tatum took 17 percent of his shots there, James is at 21.7 percent and even Kawhi Leonard was at 36.4 percent. As good as Durant is from the mid-range, he is hindering his own shot spectrum as things currently stand.

He is too good a shooter to have attempted pretty much the same amount of threes per game as Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. He should probably be closer to eight attempts per game. Heck, even Tatum’s number of attempts should be plausible for Durant.

Let’s dig a bit further and look at some numbers since Durant left Golden State.

Durant’s 2024-25 Shot Spectrum Not An Exception

As we can see, the trend holds up even beyond just last season. Even over a five year period, Durant is the second-best in terms of accuracy and still eighth in terms of attempts.

Even further expanding on Durant’s shot spectrum, he has averaged taking nearly 45 percent of his field goal attempts between 10 feet and the three-point line. While he’s right that the difficulty of mid-range shots should be reserved for the game’s best players like himself, taking nearly half his shots from that area is actively hurting the effectiveness of his scoring.

Phoenix finished with the second-highest mid-range frequency rate (37.4%) last season, behind only the Sacramento Kings (38.6%). A good chunk of the Kings’ mid-range bias is courtesy of DeMar DeRozan, and think about how often he gets criticized for his shot spectrum.

Now, let’s also consider that as teams there is no franchise hitting the 40 percent mark as far as mid-range frequency is concerned. Cleveland and Boston were among the two best offenses and they took around a quarter of their shots from the mid-range.

Can Durant’s Shooting Change With Rockets?

In some ways, we take for granted just how easy Durant makes scoring look. His efficiency from every area of the floor makes it seem ridiculous to question any aspect of how he goes about his business.

The Rockets will love having someone who can grease the wheels when things get mucky. That mid-range jumper is going to feel like a cool splash of water on a hot summer’s day, especially in the playoffs. The absolute ceiling of this team, though, on a team lacking three-point threats, may just come down to his willingness to shoot from deep.

When Steve Nash watched prime Steph Curry and reflected on own career, he acknowledged he should have shot the ball more. When Durant’s time comes to look back, he may wonder if things might be any different if he shot threes more often.

In that way, it’s fitting that Durant’s foot was on the line for one of the most pivotal moments of his career. That shot to potentially win Brooklyn the series against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the conference semis should have been a three.

To date, the biggest shot Durant has hit is arguably the pull-up three he hit in a Warriors uniform in the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Embrace the three, Kevin, you’re too good not to.