'It's an advantage': How post-ups became the NBA's most efficient play

"Post-ups were once a staple of plodding, inside-out offenses across the league, but by 2019, they'd been declining in frequency for years. Yet that didn't stop the TV commentators that night from wondering why Kristaps Porzingis wasn't playing with his back to the basket more, in the long tradition of elite NBA big men."

"In 2013-14, the first season of GeniusIQ tracking data, teams averaged 11.8 post-ups per 100 half-court possessions -- about the same as isolations and handoffs. But while the frequency of isos and handoffs has increased by more than 50% since then, post-ups have declined by two-thirds, to just 4.0 per 100 half-court possessions in 2025-26."

"Yet a strange reversal occurred in the mid-2020s. To twist Carlisle's words, the game has changed back: What was once decried as an inefficient, low-value play has instead become the most efficient half-court play in the sport -- better than isolations, better than handoffs, even better than the good old pick-and-roll."

NBA strategy shifted in the 2010s as analytics discouraged post-ups and rewarded isolations, handoffs and pick-and-rolls. Post-ups fell sharply from roughly 11.8 per 100 half-court possessions in 2013-14 to about 4.0 in 2025-26 while isos and handoffs increased more than 50%. Coaches publicly labeled post-ups low-value for modern bigs, yet by the mid-2020s the efficiency landscape flipped: post-ups emerged as the single most efficient half-court action, surpassing isolations, handoffs and pick-and-rolls even though overall usage remains far lower than a decade earlier.

Read at ESPN.com