"For as self-evident as the observation may seem, when you're in the midst of a stretch that's seen a new champion crowned in each of the last seven years, a span that's produced 11 different finalists, a time when the league essentially has a new crop of trendsetters every year and tactics change at warp speed, it's not always obvious which way the prevailing winds are blowing."
"It's not like last season's Toronto Raptors (or this year's, for that matter) had any hope of playing like those Celtics, but Rajakovic was still one of a handful of coaches who told me that the rest of the NBA's challenge involved either mimicking or countering what Boston had built. It was no coincidence that leaguewide 3-point attempt rate spiked significantly in 2024-25 after five years of relative stability."
Championship-level teams shape league tendencies and can accelerate stylistic shifts across the NBA. Recent champions emphasized shooting and positional switching, contributing to a spike in 3-point attempt rate in 2024-25. Despite that emphasis, the 2025 Finals featured teams with middling long-range frequency, while key conference challengers ranked near the bottom in three-point volume. Early 2025-26 evidence shows that top offenses can succeed with low three-point volume, forcing teams to choose between imitating popular models or constructing deliberate counter-strategies to exploit evolving tendencies.
Read at Raptors Republic
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