I am reminded of a plot of electron orbitals…
I wanna see an infographic of how he raped that girl that one time.
This infographic kind of does in an optical illusion sort of way.
I’m more curious about how one gathers all this data in the first place. What system is used to pinpoint exactly where a basketball player is standing when they take a shot?
EDIT: Okay, that was easy to find. As you might surmise, I’m not a basketball fan.
What is player tracking?
“Using six cameras installed in the catwalks of every NBA arena, SportVU software tracks the movements of every player on the court and the basketball 25 times per second.”
I’m sort of amazed anybody asked the 3 point line dead zone question.
Love it! Smart move by the NBA to lure in data nerds like me . . .
Note: Two shots from the 2012-13 season are unaccounted for in the NBA’s shot tracking data and are not displayed here.
What?! Oh, fuck this shoddy amateur hour bullshit! I didn’t click on a link to see 30,697/30,699ths of a story!
So this confuses me. I really know little about basketball, but isn’t the area behind the net out of bounds - and the net itself protected by a backboard? How on earth is it even possible to score from those areas?
It’s not easy, but the ball isn’t out of bounds until it hits the ground or is touched by a player who has gone out of bounds. So you can be several feet out of bounds in mid-air launching the ball straight up and over the backboard and still score.
Also, the basket is a couple feet inside the line, which creates a little wiggle room for those kinds of angles.
EDIT: For example–
I’m a little surprised that the furthest shot he made was only 43 feet.
There are some shots that are kinda hidden at the back of the court, I can drag the screen up but it bounces back before I can highlight them, although they all appear to be misses. In 20 years I’d have thought he’d make at least one buzzer beater from the back of the court. Guess they’re just not that common.
“This chart does not include free throws.” I was wondering why there wasn’t a big cluster at the free-throw line. So, that answers that.
Also, I haven’t followed Kobe’s career closely, but I’m a bit surprised his longest shot is 43 feet since the half-court line is 47 feet. After 20 years in the NBA, I have a hard time believing he’s never tossed up a single desperation shot in the last seconds of a half or game.
Yup. I just thought the same thing. Sorry for the duplicate comment. 
Glad I’m not the only one. I was thinking maybe there’s some disqualifying factor which would seem obvious to a proper fan. I guess they’re just super rare. Like, he has only a few shots from way back in the court throughout his whole career, but like… a 1 in, what, 50 record from more than 40 feet?
This one looks like it’s about 50 feet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHI6G5jO0to
And this one is a whopper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpJX2T9i0ao
That first one is the 43-footer against the Jazz, right?
The second one just isn’t on the damn map! Maybe it’s because you can’t scroll down to the very bottom!?
The first one is against the Portland Trailblazers, and it’s beyond half-court, so it has to be at least 47 feet (which is why I pegged it around 50).
I tried to see if I could easily download the raw data from the NBA page, but I couldn’t find it. I’m sure the data are there somewhere, but I really should concentrate on my paid employment for the rest of the day. Honestly, though, sports stats are more fun. I know there is a whole world of stats crowd-sourcing in various sports (esp. baseball), and I’m afraid to get sucked into the rabbit hole. Maybe when I retire, I’ll just hole myself up in my garage with some Ben-and-Jerry’s and a super-computer.
D’oh, yes, behind the half court line… *sigh
