Chet Holmgren is playing through the early stages of a career-best season with the OKC Thunder, and a major reason for this is his drive to "expand my repertoire" of skills on the hardwood.
Among the many areas of play he's been able to dominate, it appears the mid-range game is where he's taken the biggest leap.
As per the findings of Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman, heading into Monday's showdown against the New Orleans Pelicans, Holmgren found himself hoisting up an average of 1.3 shot attempts per game from the mid-range, cashing them in at a 61.5 percent clip.
Such a mark is miles ahead of both his production and activity from this area of the floor just last season, where he attempted fewer than one single mid-range shot a night while hitting them at a messily 29.6 percent rate.
Thunder big proving successful in area of play NBA has phased out
Perhaps the most interesting part about his uptick in mid-range activity is the fact that, since the turn of the century, the game of basketball has slowly been phasing out this area of play.
Looking at the data and visualizations, the modern era of the sport is more geared toward shots inside the painted area and from beyond the three-point arc, and less toward the in-between section, which ranges from just outside the painted area to just inside the perimeter.
However, Holmgren has leaned into this unoccupied space, and has been absolutely thriving with it being incorporated.
The Thunder have predominantly used the 23-year-old at the four spot in favor of rolling out a double-big starting lineup with Isaiah Hartenstein running alongside him at the five.
This approach to the rotation structure has proven to be a handful for opposing teams to deal with, especially considering Holmgren, who measures in at 7-foot-2, is predominantly going up against players at the power forward position who range from 6-foot-8 to 6-foot-10, which has almost certainly had a positive impact on his improved mid-range numbers.
Simply put, as opposed to when he was utilized as the club's primary center, he's now shooting over much smaller defenders while slotted in at forward.
The results of this configuration have led to the Thunder ranking in the 86 percentile in points per 100 possessions (122.2), 87 percentile in effective field goal percentage (57.8), and the 99 percentile in point differential (+22.9) while Holmgren is dropping career highs of 19.9 points on 59.1 percent shooting from the floor and 40.4 percent shooting from deep.
Most importantly, however, OKC is once again leading the charge in the league's standings at 14-1 and looks to be a virtually unstoppable on-court collective.