The mid-range never died, it just moved house

We banned the long two and then rebuilt an entire offensive concept on a shot taken from exactly the same place.

Somebody tell me the difference between a bad long two and a good short roll floater, because on a shot chart they are the same dot.

Fourteen feet, left elbow, ball goes up over a rotating helper. If a guard takes it off the dribble with sixteen on the clock, the analytics crowd groans. If a big takes it two seconds after catching on the short roll out of a hedge, it is celebrated as sophisticated offense. Same distance, same expected value out of context, wildly different reputation.

The difference, obviously, is the possession that produced it. The long two of the bad old days came at the end of an isolation, with a set defense and no rebounding position. The short roll floater comes with the defense in rotation, two offensive players already sealing inside for the miss, and a live pass available if the corner defender bites. It is not the shot that is good or bad. It is what the shot is standing on.

Which is why I have lost patience with shot charts as an evaluation tool for anything beyond a broad first pass. They measure location and they pretend to measure quality. A well-defended corner three and a naked one look identical. A pull-up taken to beat the shot clock and one taken with fourteen seconds left look identical. We built a whole orthodoxy on a picture that cannot see the defense.

The teams doing interesting work now are the ones bringing the mid-range back on purpose, in a specific spot, for a specific reason. The nail. The elbow catch against a drop coverage. If the centre is going to sit at the level of the free throw line and dare you, the correct answer is to accept, because a rhythm elbow jumper from a player who shoots it well is genuinely a better outcome than forcing a contested floater over a seven footer. The shot is not the point. Making the coverage untenable is the point, and once the big has to step up, the roll man eats.

So no, the mid-range is not underrated and it is not making a comeback. It never left. It just got re-labelled by people who needed to keep the orthodoxy intact while quietly ignoring it.