Underdog Stories / Sports analysis & explainers

Why Did NBA Big Men Start Shooting Three-Pointers?

Why did NBA big men start shooting three-pointers? Will Perdue's stories of Dirk Nowitzki and Robin Lopez show how an outside shot can clear the lane.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · November 11, 2017

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Will Perdue stood beside Dirk Nowitzki after an interview and noticed something the Mavericks’ program seemed to miss. Dirk was listed at 6-foot-11. Perdue, a former NBA center, thought he was taller.

Why did NBA big men start shooting three-pointers? Teams found that a big man who could score from outside gave the offense more room near the basket. His defender had to choose: follow him away from the rim or leave him open. As that choice grew more useful, players learned to make it a problem for the defense.

Why did NBA big men start shooting three-pointers?

The three-point line arrived in the NBA for the 1979–80 season. It did not send centers racing to the corners. Teams averaged just 2.8 attempts from deep per game that first year, and many coaches treated the new shot as a curiosity. A big man’s work was still close to the hoop.

That work made sense. A center near the basket could catch an entry pass, shoot from close range and fight for a rebound. A power forward could do much the same. Coaches had good reasons to want tall players where height helped most.

Then offenses began to see what happened when everyone stayed there. A defender guarding a big man in the paint could also get in the way of a teammate driving toward the rim. Move that big man outside, and the defender faces an awkward trip. If he follows, the lane has more room. If he stays, the shooter may get a clear look.

On Tales From the Association, Chris Horwedel asks Will Perdue about the move from back-to-the-basket play toward stretch players. Perdue’s answer is about staying useful. A player need not make threes every night, Perdue says. He has to show he can make one often enough that a defender pays attention.

It sounds like a small demand. For someone who spent years being told to stay near the basket, it was a new job description.

Did big men shoot threes before Dirk Nowitzki?

Yes. Dirk was an example of where the game was headed, rather than the first tall player to find the line. Jack Sikma offers an earlier case. He made three three-pointers for Milwaukee in 1987–88, then made 82 the next season. A center taking that many was still unusual.

Sikma could already shoot. The change was giving that shot a new place in the offense. When he moved away from the hoop, a defender had to decide whether to go with him. Del Harris, who coached Sikma in Milwaukee and later worked with Nowitzki in Dallas, has described both players as steps in the growth of outside play for big men.

There was no clean starting date. Some players took threes while most of their peers stayed inside. Others shot from long range without stepping behind the line. What changed was how often teams wanted a big man out there.

The numbers show the wider shift. In 2016–17, three-pointers accounted for 31.6% of teams’ field-goal attempts. By 2023–24, the share had risen to 39.5%. Once outside shots occupied that much of an offense, asking its tallest player to stay inside every possession became a choice worth checking.

How did Dirk Nowitzki change the role of a big man?

Perdue tells the Dirk story as a dispute over an inch or two. After an ESPN Radio interview at a Mavericks game, Perdue asked Nowitzki how tall he was. Dirk said 6-foot-11, the height in the program. Perdue did not buy it.

Perdue recalls Dirk explaining why he resisted a taller listing: “If I tell everybody I’m 7 feet, they’re going to try to put me down in the post.” He did not want a center label to decide how he played. Perdue thought Dirk was closer to 7-foot-1; the NBA now lists Nowitzki at 7 feet. The exact measurement matters less than the argument Dirk was making.

A player that tall was supposed to have an obvious destination on the court. Nowitzki made the destination less obvious. Dallas could use his size while letting him face the basket and shoot from far beyond the usual range of a forward. As a rookie in 1998–99, he attempted 1.4 threes per game. He finished his career with 1,982 made threes.

That career made the idea harder to dismiss. Perdue remembers doubts about Nowitzki’s early NBA play, and the numbers bear out a slow start: Dirk averaged 8.2 points as a rookie, then 17.5 the next season. He grew into a star without accepting that height had to put his back to the basket.

“You don't necessarily have to be a good 3-point shooter, but you have to prove that you can knock down a 3 periodically.”
— Will Perdue, on Tales From the Association

Perdue calls him one of the early stretch players, while making clear that “stretch player” was a later name for the role. The term is plain enough. Dirk could stretch a defense across more of the floor. The defender who once expected to meet him near the hoop had to go looking for him.

How does a shooting center open up the paint?

The center is waiting under the rim. His defender can step toward the driving guard and still stay close to the player he’s supposed to stop. It’s an easy choice.

Now put the center beyond the three-point line. If his defender follows, that defender starts the play farther from the rim. If he stays near the rim, the center can receive a pass and shoot. The shot does not have to fall every time. The defense has to believe it might.

That is the point Perdue makes to Horwedel. The threat of an occasional three can “stretch out the defense,” Perdue says, and open the paint. A big man’s outside shot helps a teammate even when the big man never touches the ball on that play.

There is another choice when the defender follows him. He can screen for a guard, then step away to receive a pass for a jumper. Or he can head toward the rim if the defender rushes out too far. His shot gives the offense places to go. He is still tall enough to finish close in.

The results can look odd on a stat sheet. NBA data from 2024–25 shows that teams kept shooting from outside without giving up on the paint. In each of the three seasons through 2024–25, more than 57% of field-goal attempts came from the paint. More space outside can make the close shot easier to reach.

Why did Robin Lopez work on his three-point shot?

Perdue’s Dirk story concerns a star who did not want to be told where to stand. His Robin Lopez story is about a center trying to keep pace with the league. That makes it just as telling.

Perdue says he spoke with Lopez at a Bulls media day and asked what he had worked on that summer. Lopez said he had practiced shooting threes. Perdue was startled. In his eyes, Lopez was about as close to an old-school center as the league still had: a player who held his ground near the rim and could also make a shorter jumper.

Lopez’s answer, as Perdue recounts it, was practical. He did not plan to build each night around threes. He wanted to prove he could make one now and then because he wanted to keep playing. That is a different kind of pressure from the one Dirk described. Lopez was asking how much of his familiar game he needed to change.

There is a useful check on the story. On October 21, 2017, Lopez made the first three-pointer of his NBA career in a Bulls game against San Antonio. He made four threes that season. Four is hardly a new identity. It is enough to see why a summer of practice mattered to him.

Perdue had played center in a league that gave tall players a narrower brief. When he hears that Lopez spent his summer at the three-point line, his surprised “What?” does plenty of work. A center was once asked whether he could hold his place in the paint. Lopez had to answer a question from farther away.

Do NBA centers still need to play in the post?

Some do, and shooting does not erase the value of a close shot. A big man who can score near the rim gives the defense a reason to guard him there. A strong rebounder can also earn a place without becoming a frequent three-point shooter. Harris, who praised Dirk’s effect on outside play, has said the big man is far from finished.

Perdue remembers how specific the job could be. Horace Grant complained that the Bulls did not run plays for him, Perdue says. Coach Phil Jackson’s answer, as Perdue recalls it: if Grant wanted more points, he should collect more offensive rebounds. That work helped the team, even if few possessions began with the ball in his hands.

That memory gives Horwedel pause. He tells Perdue he misses the bruising power forwards he watched in NBA on NBC games, naming Charles Oakley and the Davis brothers. Perdue agrees that the old enforcer role had faded. Their exchange has a little grief in it. There was skill in doing that work well, and a three-point total was never going to measure it.

Perdue’s own career offers a caution against treating positions as permanent rules. In Chicago, he says, he had a set role as a passer and a defender. After his trade to San Antonio, the coaches gave him four weeks to show them more. He remembers that chance as freeing.

The question for a center now is much the same: what can he show his team? Sometimes the answer begins with a hook shot. For Lopez, it included four threes and a summer spent practicing a shot that once would have made Perdue say “What?” all over again.