The Art of The Floater
Here comes the FLOATA BOOM
When David’s backed into a corner, he floats a teardrop over Goliath.
This last-ditch attempt takes touch, torque, and timing.
From The Iceman to The Doctor, to Iverson to Morant, the best rim-finishers to ever play find a way to utilize runners in their game.
While the finger-roll is an underhanded gift to the rim, the floater is more like gracefully flicking a shotput over a burly wall. These motions are not the same.
Yet, George Gervin had such mastery of the finger-roll, he’d be out there jelly-fishin’ , floating under-handed shots up over towering bigs, gently dropping the rock through the net. Julius Erving, the ultimate finisher at the rim, scored at the basket with ease by finessing his way over, under, and around the opposition.
Allen Iverson, Mark Jackson, and Tony Parker assisted in popularizing the modern-looking floater for smaller paint-penetrating guards. Tomorrow’s stars of today like Trae Young, Ja Morant, and Luka Doncic break out the move on the regular. Even modern bigs like Nikola Jokic show off their touch around the rim in this fashion.
The ghost of floater past remains a mystery. Bob Cousy from the 50’s Celtics teams helped pioneer the running push-shot, yet some hoop historians credit Hank Luisetti of the 1930s Stanford teams for countering defenses with one-handed finishes.
Whichever hoops savant gifted us the teardrop, we honor them for their bravery. Floaters wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of basketball innovators searching for advantages over the opposition and expanding the game in the process. What else can fans do but bow down and thank the basketball gods for their ingenuity?
HERE COMES THE FLOATA BOOM
Total Runners taken by all players during each NBA season since 2008:
Counting up all the NBA Players to take ten or more total runners by season since 2008:
Number of players to attempt at least 10+ runners fourteen years ago? 6
Number of players to attempt at least 10+ runners this season? 303
Total Runners fourteen years ago? 519
Total Runners this season? 14,254
In 2008, just 519 Runners were taken. However, since 2013, the total number of floaters in any given season has only fallen below 10,000 once, an outlier year. Who doesn’t remember where they were during *The FLOATA Drought of 2015?
Back in 2008, Chris Paul tallied 18 runner attempts, the second-most of any player according to Synergy. Rafer “Skip-to-my-lou” Alston and Tony Parker tossed up thirteen attempts each that year.
Two seasons later, in 2010, Rajon Rondo doubled that tally with 36 runner attempts to lead the league, while a total of 48 players attempted ten or more floaters.
Then, the next year, it happened.
The FLOATA BOOM exploded around the association.
In 2011, Shawn Marion, Derrick Rose, and Tony Parker ranked Top-3 in total floaters, tossing up around 130 a piece. 188 different players took at least ten floaters that season and over 6,700 floaters were shot in total.
Two years after that, in 2013, not only were 11,063 total runners taken, but Grevis Vasquez attempted over 262 runners himself, nearly 100 more than second place!
From 2012-2015, float king Jeff Teague ranked 1st, 2nd, 1st, and 2nd in runners taken. Between 2016-2019, DeRozan stayed near the top of the league in runner attempts, ranking 7th, 1st, 4th, and 12th in each respective season, racking up 218 runners the year he lead the league. (2017)
* Only 2,825 teardrops were taken in The FLOATA Drought of 2015, a sports tragedy. For comparison, that’s 7,000+ fewer floaters than any season since 2013. Every year since 2015 has trended up into five-digit floater totals, with this year’s count reaching 14,254.
How effectively are NBA Teams using the floater in this 2021-22 season?
The average floater this season scores 0.89 points per possession. The Hustle & Float Memphis Grizzlies take the most runners of any team (12.5/gm), while the L.A. Clippers (1.0 PPP) and Denver Nuggets (0.99 PPP) are the most efficient runner-making teams this season.
Here’s a glance at the 2021-22 per game FLOATA leaders
Brandon Clarke, Tyus Jones, and Ja Morant combine to take 8 floaters per game for Memphis, a rate that would rank 3rd in the NBA for any *team*!
Ja Morant and Trae Young have led the league in runners taken since their first steps on the hardwood. Ja has ranked second in total runners for three straight seasons; Trae has ranked first for four. Most walk before they run; Trae and Ja choose to float.
Morant (4.0/gm) finished the regular season racking up the second-most total floaters, yet essentially tied with Young (4.1) on a per-game basis. When using the runner against single coverage in pick-and-roll, Ja scored 0.98 PPP when he dribbled off a pick and 1.19 PPP when he ignored the screen.
Ja Morant’s unpredictability makes him a ceiling-raising x-factor at every level, a valuable player to have late into the postseason. His herky jerky handles, endless hesis, and swifty shiftiness make him near unguardable, with all the feel, touch, and ball control in the world. Ja’s spontaneous style gives new meaning to the phrase “shake ‘n’ bake”.
Trae Young has the sweetest float game since the first guy to drop two scoops of vanilla into a cup of root beer. In spite of only being four years into his career, Young has taken over three hundred more floaters than any other NBA player over the last five seasons, averaging a sound 0.98 points per possession while doing it.
Few fool defenses as well as Luka Doncic, keeping them on their toes with pump-fakes, counter-moves, and body control. Once Doncic works his way to the nail, the ball could spray out in any direction. Taking one less runner per game (3.3) than Trae, Luka Doncic was as efficient of a scorer as Trae on floaters. (0.97 PPP)
Showing touch on his trusty floater early on, Tyrese Maxey has rapidly developed into one of the premier outside shooters in the league. Tyrese went from shooting 30% on 1.7 3PA as a rookie to 43% on 4.1 3PA as a sophomore, the third highest 3P% in the NBA. Maxey’s 220 runners in his first two seasons is the 83rd-most of any player’s total over the last five years.
Nikola Jokic scores 1.25 PPP on runners over the past five years, the most efficient floater in the league by a slight margin over specialists and by a wide margin over the average player. At that rate, a Jokic runner would be the most reliable on-ball halfcourt play in the league this season, more valuable by points per possession than any player in any ISO, P&R, or Post-Up playtype. (min. 50 poss)
Floater Leaders Last Five NBA Seasons In 3 Data Visualizations
by volume:
by efficiency:
Game-Winning Floaters from Trae Young, Ja Morant, and Luka Doncic
April 22, 2022
Trae Young ices his third playoff game of 2022 with a runner to defeat the Miami Heat.
Dec 7, 2021
Ja Morant hits an up-and-under FLOATA to beat Phoenix!
May 23, 2021
Trae Young caps off his first-ever playoff appearance with a teardrop in the Garden to silence the New York Knicks crowd.
April 14, 2021
Luka Magic finds a way to hit this bananas leaning 3PT runner to beat Memphis
March 23, 2019
Ice Trae’s first professional game-winning floater for the Atlanta Hawks arrives against the Philadelphia Sixers
"Those are the type of plays you live for,
with the clock counting down...
I just wanted to get to my strong suit
and get to my pull-up,
that mid-range floater I have."
- Trae Young
"For me, it's an efficient shot, because I practice it and I'm able to make it in games. Off the left foot, off the right foot, off both feet. If you practice it and you work on it, it can become an efficient shot for you. But I think based on how I play, my game is different than a lot of guys in the league. I can finish at the rim but I can also use the floater and I can use the mid-range shot, so it gives me a different type of advantage." - CJ McCollum (via Joe Wolfond/The Score)
When you’re efficient at the shots defenses want you to take, you walk into the looks that you want to take. Basketball legends at the peak of their powers like Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul fed off the shots that defenses dared them to shoot.
In the family of “bad” shots, the runner is a second cousin to the middy pull-up. The most skilled specialists are encouraged to treat the area as a viable option, but the average player is shunned away for the sake of team shot-profile efficiency.
Both looks can be created in pick-and-roll as counters to drop coverage, such as Chris Paul’s staple snake-dribble elbow fadeaway or Trae Young’s crossover teardrop floater. FLOATA specialists sharpen the tool into the deadliest weapon in their arsenal; Brandon Clarke and Richaun Holmes have two of the most reliable runners around.
Pick-and-roll maestros survey the floor for options. When they’re not driving and kicking, they’re looking to set up the roll-man, draw a foul, or put the ball through the net. ISO scorers share similar goals after crossing up the opponent on drives, drawing help defenders as the dunker-spot lob threat looms.
Against drop coverage, an effective floater freezes the big man defender. If one breaks down the defense by penetrating the paint, a 2-on-1 opportunity suddenly appears. When timed correctly, the ball-handler stops the big man defender in his tracks with a statue-of-liberty-pull-up motion that could either be a teardrop floater on its way to the rim one play or an alley-oop lob on its way to the hands of the roller the next. There’s little the big man defender can do without selling out one way or the other.
A mastered floater is drop coverage’s kryptonite.
As the average number of postups trends down around the league, NBA players are driving like they just got their license, more often than ever. Perimeter players have never seen this much space in their life, putting their heads down and blasting to the rack like never before. Being able to attack closeouts with Popovichian point-five second decision-making is as essential now as simply being able to space the floor.
How are all these threes created in today’s game? Endless drive-and-kicks. While Steph Curry and Damian Lillard pull up from the logo, most good looks from outside are created by running off-ball screens or through ball-movement from a kickout.
High-volume 3PT shooters with a quick-trigger reputation still draw defenders away from the rim with shooting gravity, yet the threat of everything (the three, the dribble drive, the pass) makes defenses uncomfortable, keeping them honest.
One primary goal for offenses is getting scorers to their most comfortable spots on the floor, to the shot they practice most, whether if that be a runner down the lane, a catch-and-shoot corner three, or an elbow pull-up jumper. When tough shot-makers endlessly practice a shot, they can become as skilled as specialists in any spot on the floor. When a player makes that shot at an efficient rate, roughly 0.95+ points per possession, that shot becomes a good shot, no matter where its taken on the floor.
Middy pull-ups are great offense when Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard are the ones shooting them; the same can be said when floater masters like Trae Young or Nikola Jokic have a decent look at the long layup.
The runner exists as a last-chance option for some and a planned form of attack for others. As the average player is told to stay away from this “bad shot”, real hooper rim-finishing specialists realize that message wasn’t intended for them.
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Data Sources: Synergy Sports
References: CJ McCollum quote / https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/1946131
What's happened in 2011??? Was it an rule change??? Increase was more than 4 times!