A glimpse at FiveThirtyEight Sports' preview of the Boston Celtics' 2014-15 season:

Rajon Rondo might get traded, or he might not. Marcus Smart might be Rookie of the Year, or he might not. The 2014-15 Boston Celtics’ outlook is uncertain. It’s unlikely they’ll be a .500 team, or make the playoffs. Our statistical model projects them to win 32 games.7

But the Celtics do have a rare combination in Kelly Olynyk: a 7-foot starting center who doubles as a 3-point threat. There are great long-range shooters who are tall (Kevin Durant, say), but not Kelly Olynyk-tall.

Since 1980, the league-wide average (weighted by minutes played) of all shots that are 3-pointers rose steeply until the line was moved back in 1997, only to resume its seemingly inexorable rise. For centers, the 3-pointer share has been much, much lower, and the climb has been less steady because of the small sample sizes.

Yet something interesting has happened in recent years: Seven-footers are taking more threes. The rate nearly tripled between the 2011 season average of 2.6 percent and last season’s record-shattering high of 7.6 percent.

Of 7-footers last season, five binged on the long ball: Spencer Hawes, Donatas Motiejunas, Andrea Bargnani, Dirk Nowitzki and Olynyk. Each attempted more than 20 percent of his shots from behind the arc.

Bargnani and Motiejunas hit less than 30 percent of their threes, while Olynyk hit 35 percent, Nowitzki hit 40 percent and Hawes hit an impressive 42 percent (good for 10th-best in the league).

Now, this is not a widespread phenomenon: Most 7-footers do not shoot from long range, but the few who do are doing ever more of it, and Olynyk is the youngest and latest incarnation of the trend.

Olynyk is an average-to-decent player, with a Statistical Plus-Minus rating of 0.5 during his rookie year, which is above average. (His Real Plus-Minus score of -1.3 last season was about league average.) While he’s not a franchise center, his ability to play the position and still shoot so well from long range is a unique entry in Brad Stevens’s playbook. — Andrew Flowers

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