Welcome back to IAQ: Infrequently Asked Questions! This is a thing I do sometimes!

I don’t have to explain myself.

Today’s question is one you might have pondered before. It comes from my Dunker Spot friend Logan who asks, “I want to know why there aren’t offensive zones where 4 players form a circle around a good 3-pt shooter & let them rip it.”

THANK YOU LOGAN! I love getting questions. They’re like biscuits to me. The buttery kind. Again, I don’t have to explain myself.

But back to Logan … why not, indeed. I’ve watched basketball (as well as other things!) for probably about thirty years now, and I can’t recall seeing or attempting anything quite like the set Logan offers myself. The closest I’ve seen to anything like a “circle” or a “wall” around a shooter is elevator screens or a double drag that gets a little funky. To me, anyway, this would be an unprecedented move.

Let’s consider how this would look. If we’re being honest, being practical, you’re probably not looking at moving a whole pack of people in coordinated motion toward one of the corners for the shortest three-pointer on the court. That’s a lot of distance to cover against presumably a set defense. You’re not getting a circled up corner, three. You’re looking at one of the sides from above the break or something approaching dead on. I imagine you could coordinate that in advance.

In practice, this probably looks closer to a forward facing shield of four players who get in position for a three-point shot from like 27 feet out. In my imagination, this shot would be taken by a skilled pull-up shooter as the outsides of the wall folding back into more of an overextended semicircle to ward off approaching defenders.

I think. I guess.

I really feel as though this would have to be something done rapidly rather than, you know, something done comically where everyone gets in a circle around the guy after the inbound and everyone goes up the court like a motorcade. I would love to see that. I doubt I ever will.

Are we on the same page so far?

Next, I decided to look up who might fit best for this. We can’t base all five positions around this specific set so we can say “good screeners” are helpful, but that’s about as far as we get with most of the personnel. The question becomes, who are volume shooters that can hit from above the break and off the dribble? I made two lists.

The first list I formulated on the NBA.com Stats Page. In this one, I got the top players in 3-point percentage on pull-up 3s out of those who took at least three of those shots per game. I cut the list off in my head at players who shot 35 percent or better.

The second list is also from the NBA.com Stats Page. Here I found the above-the-break 3-point percentage of shooters who took more than three of those shots per game. I cut the list off at who shot 40 percent or better.

Only four players made both cutoffs: Darius Garland, Norm Powell, Zach LaVine, and Desmond Bane. And, if you looked at both of those links, you might have noticed that Mr. LaVine actually tops both lists. By a comfortable margin. Somehow.

During the 2024-25 regular season, Zach LaVine shot 43.7 percent on pull-up threes, and 44.1 percent above the break. So, based on this meager but cute little research, Zach LavVne (not Stephen Curry, not Damian Lillard, not Jordan Poole (lol)) is the person this offensive idea would have been most suited to this past year.

Be nice. Zach is a fine basketball player. Remember when he dunked? Me too.

So one would hope, with proper execution, Zach would be able to hit, at minimum, 40 percent of his 3s from the Shooting Circle, as I might call it sometime. Maybe we can scooch that up a bit with dedicated practice and all, but we’re installing a brand new offensive approach here. We really can’t assume he’ll be up in the 44 percent range.

So, 40 percent on each of your 3-pointers would put you at about 1.20 points per shot. From what I could find on whatever Google has become (I tried other search engines too), I found the value of shots at the rim to be about that same range (1.20 - 1.25). A shot at the rim is supposed to be the best shot in basketball. If Zach and his screeners could perfect this, crank up the percentage, who knows where that points-per-shot number could stop. 1.30? 1.35?

In a perfect world where a team is able to move up court quickly enough to form a screeny space for Zach LaVine (or Desmond Bane. He’s fine too.) to sneak in and fire off a clean look, this sounds like a viable strategy! Sometimes! It seems so playful in away. And fun. And cool. Maybe this is the ultimate hack for basketball.

We are left with pull-up 3s here, unless you want to work in some additional action to get the ball into the Shooting Circle. Some people have that in their game, but it’s far less common than a steady catch-and-shoot percentage.

Also, everyone has their spots on the floor. I feel like once defenses catch on to where the Shooting Circle is going to be for the respective Circle Shooter, they’re going to figure out how to counteract quick.

Also, if we have all the players out on the perimeter making a formation, there’s going to be the problem of very little offensive rebounding. They can all try crashing from the outside, but pretty much all angles around the hoop around going to be covered.

Also, it’d be interesting to see how offensive players would manage to not get in the shooter’s space while still remaining tight enough to have side-by-side screens still have enough coverage to be effective. Again, four people, arms at their sides, are not quite wide enough side-by-side to form a full circle. There are going to have to be compromises here. This is another one.

Also, if this shot is coming from more toward one of the sides of the court, this quickly becomes the easiest leak out on defense that a defender has ever leaked. There could probably be a person designated just to be away from the play in space for precisely this purpose. A slight reimagining of Vivek Ranadive’s cherry-picking idea coming right back to bite him.

Also, matching up going back on defense would be a pain. Y’all are all coming from a big pack of people on the same spot on the floor. If transition starts happening against you, you need to communicate, and you need to move fast to get in place with your defender. Seems like a pain.

Also, depending on how often this play would be run, you could very much be testing the buy-in of the players. Like, I can imagine some people thinking “this is the revolutionary offense to base future decisions around,” but how much of your offense can be “stand there and screen while the point-getting man rises up to shoot behind you over and over” before commitment erodes? As much as this could be your favorite thing in the world, it can’t be the only thing in the world.

Also, even with assumed buy in, what if the defensive team just sells out to deny the Circle Shooter the ball? Full court press, don’t let him take the inbound, force the ball into someone else’s hands (maybe a screening specialist or four). The more dependent you are on one person to make your offense run, the more susceptible you are to individual tweaks making a huge difference.

Also, the shot at the rim is still the best shot in basketball. As much as the value and perceived value of a three-point shot has gone up in the last dozen seasons or so, their primary purpose is to free up the paint for an easier look inside. That gravity shooters have to pull defenders away from the hoop gives the big men more room to work. Better shots. Once the potential for that shot vanishes, it seems like a good chunk of your points could too.

Also, I have to think about moving screens. This is the third time I’ve mentioned it, but how tight can four NBA players stand shoulder-to-shoulder to form an adequate wall while still spreading out wide enough to make the wall have an actual purpose? Again, the shooter needs some space. I don’t think this would be easy. People might try to cheat a little on screens. That gets called sometimes.

Also, this set, when done as intended, lets the defense keep all the action in front of it. There are no sneaky back cuts, no sudden rotations, and no penetration to worry about. If at any point one wanted to break out of this Shooter’s Circle formation to do something else, it would be quite hard for any misdirection. Breaking out in football routes? Sure. Catching someone on their back foot? Not so much.

Also, this would interrupt the flow of the offense. Just full stop. The ball wouldn’t be swinging, and the players wouldn’t have much to engage with. Just kind of a lot of “Okay. Go there. Stop. Yay. Time for defense.” Assuming this set is mixed in with anything else, it would stand out like a sore thumb.

Also, there are only a few people in the league that can even make this idea viable. If that player is off, how long do you stick with them before you try something else?

Also, unlike clearing out for isolation, there’s no really chance for engagement. At least in iso, you might get called up for a pick, or start rotating around as a drive is made. There’s movement, and you move with it. In this, everything is stationary. The only way a player besides the Circle Shooter gets involved is if the Circle Shooter messes up, picks up his dribble, and has to hand off the ball like a live grenade.

And I think that would be fascinating.

I think all of this would be fascinating. To be clear, I want this to happen. I want this to happen so much that people get tired of it. I’m just saying I see some flaws. One of those flaws, or a couple of those flaws, or other reasons entirely are probably why we haven’t really seen this.

In writing this, I remembered a similar discussion about Steph Curry in the not too distant past, so I looked for it. I found it. I decided not to read it, but I wanted to link it here in case you wanted to. It seems in some way dishonest not to have mentioned it.

Personally, I’m all for weird stuff. I want the one-footed threes. I want cherry pickers. I want people forming rings around Zach LaVine and letting him rip. Having this type of thing involved in the league, even sparingly, is fun! As long as you can follow up “What am I watching?” with “Okay, well, why is this happening?” a lot of things in a lot of different areas become a lot more rational and, to me, enjoyable.

It’s fun to picture little variations of this play. People pretending to form a wall, then breaking out to their spots like football routes, crossing, hesitating. All that fun stuff. You’d need a playmaker in your group of five here, but point guards can set screens too.

And again, this would be clunky for misdirection, but maybe fun. So many bodies in one place could lead to someone losing their man for a moment, depending on how they break out of the pack, if that’s the way they’re going.

I also like the idea of the Kings getting out a big sheet and moving around the court like one amorphous blob. I don’t think it’s legal, but that would really entertain the kids. Ratings issues would be solved for generations.

But I think this is really what it comes down to. It’s quite different from something already being done and the potential downsides of it, while not killer in my mind, are numerous, so it’s hard to be the first to incorporate a set like this into regular rotation. Also, if I like it, it’s probably dumb as h*ck. Finally, no one thing, no one player can make up an NBA offense. Once the counter to it is known, you either let it go or you adjust. Frankly, it’s tough to adjust out of a big crowd of people all in one spot.

I hope that was interesting if nothing else! Thanks again, Logan!