NBA Bubble: Streaky shooting or the perfect environment?

Are players stepping up or is the NBA bubble the perfect shooting environment?

A large topic among fans during the months since sports have resumed has been the NBA Bubble and the legitimacy of winning the 2020 NBA Championship in this environment. Reading multiple news outlets and comments sections on Twitter, I have constantly seen the term “Mickey Mouse Rings” and how this season should always have an asterisk.

Recently, I was listening to a podcast (Down to Dunk, an OKC Thunder Pod), and they got into the subject of shooters and young players in the NBA bubble. The bubble has been regarded as a perfect environment, and the argument was presented that this could increase the level of play.

There is no travel for players and they are able to go through the same routine each day. The first example they discussed was Tyler Herro, and if his unprecedented play for the Miami Heat on their improbable playoff run would translate to an arena filled with 19,000 people. The other player they briefly discussed was Jamal Murray.

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I decided to dive into Murray’s statistics from his first few years in the NBA and see if there was actually something there. In the 2018-19 playoffs, Jamal Murray shot 33.7 percent from 3-point range over 14 games. In the 2019-20 playoffs, that percentage increased to a whopping 45.3 percent over 19 games, while also taking an additional 1.3 attempts per game. Murray’s highest 3-point percentage in the regular season came during his sophomore campaign, averaging 37.8 percent from 3.

Even though the numbers in the playoffs are over a shortened 14 and 19 game periods, the jump up to over 45 percent feels significant. Was this a case of Murray peaking at the right time, making a jump to another level, or does the environment deserve the credit?

We might never know if there is truly something here or not, but I decided to compare 3-point shooting numbers in the first round of the 2020 NBA Playoffs to first-round shooting in previous years of playoffs. First, we can see if totaled numbers stand out like Jamal Murray’s jump, then use statistics to see if these numbers are significant or if they are within the realm of randomness.

The combined numbers from the first round of the 2018 and 2019 NBA playoffs came to an average of 35.5 percent from behind the arc. Inside the bubble for the first round of the playoffs: 37.6 percent. A two-percentage-point jump is nothing to turn your nose at, a lot of players would love to shoot two percentage points higher, but more work is needed to know if anything here is of significance.

After a few calculations and plugging some numbers into equations, there was no statistical significance in this shift. This essentially means this variation was within a normal expected value.

Does this mean the NBA bubble has had no impact on the way players play inside of this controlled arena? I doubt it. However, these are still professional athletes, competing at the highest level in the world, and it seems like nonsense to discredit their accomplishments/career-high moments just because they haven’t been traveling or playing in front of 19,000 fans.

Next. NBA Finals: 3 wild predictions for Game 5 between the Heat and Lakers. dark

Let’s appreciate the NBA and the players for the sacrifices they made to give us basketball back.