Like dads in skinny jeans, we may be reaching peak three-pointer, propelled by the Golden State Warriors and the NBA’s embrace of analytics. The belated rush to embrace the three has come at the expense of that old-school staple, the mid-range jumper, and inaugurated a parade of bad fits.

Big guys masquerading as “stretch fours” (named for their ability to stretch the defense to the three-point line) are showing off mediocre marksmanship, and entire teams are attempting threes without regard for their ability to make them.

“People are saying you need three-pointers to win, but you don’t,” says scout Bob Chaikin, an early adopter of statistical analysis, who now works with the Miami Heat. “Just like when everyone said you needed three superstars. Then we got beat by San Antonio and they said you need great passing. Next year Golden State wins and you need three-point shooting.”

It’s taken 40 years for the NBA to temper its prejudice against the three, and those bad feelings aren’t gone. It’s simply that the shot is too effective to ignore.

“I’ll never embrace it,” said San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich in December. “I don’t think it’s basketball. It’s kind of like a circus sort of thing. Why don’t we have a five-point shot? A seven-point shot? You know, where does it stop, that sort of thing? But that’s just me. That’s just old-school. To a certain degree, you better embrace it or you’re going to lose.”

The case for the three is simple math. Thanks to its value, a player need only shoot 33% from behind the line for that shot to be worth as much as a shot inside the arc that’s made half the time. The long two from a foot or two inside the line has been a particular casualty.

This has propelled teams toward philosophies maximizing this by focusing on either getting lay-ups, free throws or threes. It’s responsible for the preponderance of penetrating guards tossing the ball back out to the boundary, known as the drive-and-kick three. On defense, teams are running hard at three-point shooters, practically daring them to step inside the line.

But it’s not as simple as shoot more threes and be more successful.

“Everybody is sitting there telling you ‘analytics says,’ but analytics don’t say that. ESPN may say it, but analytics don’t say that,” Chaikin says. “People say: if you’re going to take a deep two, you might as well take a step back and take a three, but no, if you can’t hit three-pointers, why would you do that? And you only take deep twos when you’re open. You don’t take deep two when someone’s draped all over you!”

Not only are teams shooting threes with historic frequency – 23.8 a game per game versus 22.4 and 21.5 the previous two years – but the shooting percentage has been trending down.

Three-point shooting percentage this season and last (35.2% and 35% respectively), is the lowest – excluding the strike year of 2011-2012 – since the NBA made major rules changes in 2004 including eliminating hand-checking.

Interestingly, scoring is at it highest point since the mid-90s because teams are playing at their fastest pace since 1992. But in chasing this fool’s gold, the league’s offensive efficiency has taken a dive.

This year teams are averaging 105.7 points per 100 possessions, a smidge better than last season (105.6), which was the lowest non-strike year total since the rule change a dozen years ago. (Teams averaged 102.9 before the rule change and 106.1 after, climbing and peaking seven years ago.)

Part of the problem is that the NBA’s much closer to rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock than a simple spreadsheet. Any strategic adaptations necessarily engender downstream changes, and ironically enough, it’s the mid-range jumper that stands to benefit.

“If you study how pick-and-rolls are being played nowadays, it is a lot borne out of analytics – forcing long twos and contested twos,” says Sixers coach Brett Brown. “That long two is available all over the place, and some guys say fair enough, I’ll take it, and make a very high percentage like Tony Parker. He can make that in his sleep. It isn’t a three, but it’s a high percentage shot for him, especially in fourth periods.”

The reason Brown mentions the fourth quarter is because if it’s close, that’s the point in the game when teams turn their defense up to playoff levels. Teams oriented around three-point shooting have struggled in the playoffs (like those oriented around fastbreaks) because those opportunities are easier to come by in the regular season.

“During the regular season, teams want to have a staple of what they do. They’ll do the same thing to everyone and when the playoffs start they’ll tailor it to that team,” says one Eastern Conference GM. “So what happens is you have a lot of mid-range jump shooters who are getting free runs at midrange jump shots.”

If you look at the league leaders in mid-range shooting percentage, they’re among the best players in the league. While there are still a few guys for whom the mid-range jumper is their main expertise (Mo Williams and Jordan Clarkson come to mind), it’s largely the province of guys with well-rounded games for whom the ability to stick an 18-footer is what separates them from the merely good.

Guys like Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard and Chris Bosh shoot over 46% from mid-range. Others like Chris Paul, Pau Gasol, Carmelo Anthony, Serge Ibaka and Klay Thompson shoot over 44%. Even analytics have shown there is a time and place for the mid-range jumper, especially when the going gets tough.

While contested lay-ups and open threes are preferable at most times, once the clock starts to run down, not only are they harder to come by, the shooting percentages on those shots decrease. During the final few ticks of the clock, not only is a mid-range shot more likely to be available, the quality of those chances have better outcomes than a forced three or lay-up in a crowd.

ICYMI, open mid-range shots are preferable to contested pull up 3s when there's about <8 seconds left on shot clock pic.twitter.com/wpoIAj1Uia — Krishna Narsu (@knarsu3) July 26, 2014

This is doubly true during play-off time, when teams gameplan and redouble their defensive intensity. The ability to make those available mid-range shots can be the difference between winning and losing come play-offs. And as the ubiquity of the three has grown, teams are being even more aggressive chasing players off the line.

“Teams are smart: they take away your three, they take away the lay-ups, so you gonna have to make an in-between shot. And it’s becoming that way more today,” says Raptors coach Dwayne Casey. “It’s one of the phenomena of today’s NBA: you want to shoot the threes and shoot lay-ups, but you better be a good in-between shooting team.”

While fashion has focused on the three-pointer, it’s really just one threat in the best teams’ arsenals, accompanied by potential counter-measures should opponents take that away. In the end, it’s still depth of talent and flexibility that rules the day, not simply long-range shooting.

“The way teams are defending the three-point line now is actually making it way more possible to do damage in the mid-range, if you have mid-range players,” says the Eastern Conference GM. “One of the reasons Golden State is so good is their efficiency at every shot range is really high, because they have a team that can make all of those shots.”