NBA: Ryan Anderson and the evolution of the ‘stretch four’

When one thinks of 3-point shooters, the image that almost always comes to mind is a slick-shooting guard, someone such as Stephen Curry or Ray Allen.

So it might surprise some to learn that the guy who has shot the most 3-pointers in the NBA this season isn’t a point guard, it’s not a shooting guard or even a small forward.

No, it’s Ryan Anderson of the New Orleans Hornets, a 6-10 power forward.

Anderson leads the league in makes and attempts from outside the arc as he’s gone 112-277 from deep this season. So not only is Anderson a volume shooter from deep, averaging 3.1 makes and 7.7 attempts from the land of 3, but he’s also a good shooter from deep. His 40.4 percent mark doesn’t land him in the league’s top 20, but it is just outside that list.

The best 3-point shooter in the league this year in terms of percentage, however, is another of the so-called “stretch four” types—Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs.

Bonner, another 6-10 forward, is hitting 47.4 percent from the 3-point area (27-for-57). Bonner also led the league in 3-point accuracy in 2010-11 when he shot 45.7 percent (105-for-230).

So who are these guys and why are they taking their big selves out into the land of the little guy?

The stretch four has emerged as perhaps the most versatile position on the floor in today’s NBA. Almost everyone has traditional power forwards, the guys with the size and strength to mix it up down low.

What the stretch four does, however, is to help space the offense. Having a big with the ability to get outside of the paint and be a legitimate threat to score creates both matchup problems and space on the interior for the offense to run more smoothly.

Of course, one doesn’t have to be a mad bomber from 3-point range to be an effective stretch-four type. LaMarcus Aldridge of the Portland Trail Blazers can create that sort of space with his mid-range post-up ability.

Aldridge’s bread-and-butter move is to get the ball on a wing at 15 feet or so from the basket and relentlessly back his defender down, finishing it with a turnaround jump shot from around 10 feet.

The other offensive element the stretch four opens up is the pick-and-pop game. The stretch four screens for the ballhandler and can pop out for an open shot from mid-range if the defense stays with the screener. Otherwise, the ballhandler—in Portland’s case, usually Damian Lillard—is free to continue to drive the lane.

Perhaps the best stretch four ever is Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks. The 7-foot German can score from anywhere—anywhere—on the floor. He has a variety of nifty moves in the low post, has a great mid-range game and if teams choose to ignore him at the 3-point line, they do so at their own risk—he’s a career 38 percent shooter from out there and has averaged 3.2 attempts per game.

So Nowitzki is a player who has to be guarded everywhere on the offensive end. Put a traditional big on him and he steps out to the perimeter. Put a smaller, quicker defender on him and he sets up shop down on the block.

The stretch four can be an absolute matchup nightmare.

When the Mavericks won their lone NBA title in 2011, the pick-and-pop was a big part of their game, although with a variation from the way Portland runs it now.

During that 2011 title run, particularly with J.J. Barea at the point, the Mavs would use Tyson Chandler, Barea and Nowitzki on a combination pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop. Chandler would screen and roll while Nowitzki set up shot at the 3-point line. Barea could then either drive himself, hit the roll man Chandler or pop the ball out to Nowitzki for an uncontested 3-pointer, based on how the defense opted to play it.

As for Anderson, he has continued his success as a long-range bomber even without the benefit of playing with Dwight Howard, as he did with the Orlando Magic.

Anderson also led the NBA in 3-point volume in 2011-12 while with the Magic, making 166 and attempting 422 shots from deep. With the New Jersey Nets and the Magic during his first three seasons, before he established himself as a regular, Anderson earned a spot in the rotation as a stretch four coming off the bench. Now in his fifth year, Anderson is 559-for-1440 from beyond the arc and the 5.0 average attempts per game ranks him among the all-time leaders for those with more than 250 made 3-pointers in their career. The top 50 volume 3-point shooters in terms of attempts per game are listed below:

With few exceptions, the players on that list are either still active or are just recently out of the league. In NBA history, Ray Allen—a shooting guard—has shot the highest volume of 3-pointers per game in his career.

But there are a few of the present-day stretch-four types that also make this list. Anderson is 11th all-time at 4.97 3-point attempts per game. Danilo Gallinari plays that role for the Denver Nuggets and is at No. 13 on the list at 4.91. Antoine Walker was one of the earlier stretch fours, playing the role for the Boston Celtics in the late 1990s and early 21st century and averaged 4.77 attempts from deep per game. Rashard Lewis checked in at No. 21 at 4.62 attempts per game.

That is in line, however, with not just the evolution of the stretch four but also the evolution of the 3-point shot as a regular weapon in teams’ offensive arsenal.

In the early days of the 3-point shot, both in the nine years the ABA was in operation from 1967-68 through 1975-76 and after the line was added in the NBA in 1979-80, the shot was seen by most coaches as more of a gimmick than a strategy.

Coaches in the ABA were forced to do something their contemporaries hadn’t considered: Rethink everything they knew about offensive and defensive strategy.

One ABA coach admitted in Terry Pluto’s book “Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association” that he never used the 3-pointer at first unless his team was losing late in the game and was desperate for points.

Hubie Brown, a longtime NBA coach and current television analyst, also coached in the ABA, leading the Kentucky Colonels to the championship in 1974-75.

“You have to tell your players to remember who the shooters are, and when those guys are 25 feet from the basket, get in their jocks and guard them,” Brown said in “Loose Balls.” “Don’t give them the 25-footer, which is something players had been conditioned to do all their lives. And as a coach, if you have a shooter with range, you have to give him the freedom to take the 25-footer, which is a philosophy that goes against what you learned as a young coach—namely, pound the ball inside.”

But as players became more accustomed to the shot and coaches got used to it, the long-range bomb emerged as an integral part of most offenses. The addition of the 3-point shot in the college and high-school games gave birth to a new generation of players who were familiar with the concept of spotting up at the 3-point line, something older players had to learn later in their careers.

So as the game and the use of the shot evolved, the next natural progression was for bigger players to begin to specialize in taking long bombs, as well.

The forerunner of the modern stretch four played more than 40 years ago.

Stew Johnson played his entire nine-year career in the ABA, spanning the entire life of the league.

Johnson was a 6-8, 220-pound power forward from Murray State, but he was atypical of most big players of his era because he could shoot from anywhere. The corner jumper was his favorite weapon.

Johnson attempted 872 3-point shots in his career, placing him 10th on the ABA’s all-time list. He made 269 of them—also 10th-best in ABA history—and his 30.8 percentage rate ranks 16th in ABA annals (bearing in mind that shooting percentages were far lower 40 years ago than they are today).

The next stretch four came into the league the same year as the 3-pointer. Rookie Larry Bird was 58-for-143 from long range while playing primarily at power forward as a rookie in 1979-80. The 58 makes were fifth-most in the league, the 143 attempts ranked sixth and his 40.6 accuracy placed him third behind Downtown Fred Brown of the Seattle SuperSonics (44.3) and teammate Chris Ford (42.7).

Those were the only three players in the NBA that first season of the 3-ball who shot better than 40 percent; only 15 players had enough makes (25) to qualify for the league percentage lead.

To understand the evolution of the stretch four, one has to also understand the evolution of 3-point usage in general. The table below lays out the lifetime of the 3-pointer from the ABA days through today. New NBA records for team and individual totals are indicated by italics.

Finally, the number of bigs who have adapted their games to include competency from long-range increased exponentially over the years, as illustrated by the table below, which tracks the number of fours or fives who have attempted at least 100 3-pointers in a season. Players listed played primarily power forward or center during the season during which they made the list.

Once thought of as a gimmick for the little guy, the 3-point shot is now much more of an equal-opportunity weapon, with shooters small and large alike making their living off being able to put those long balls in the hole.

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