What NBA Shooters Teach Us About Our ‘New Normal’ Weather

The holiday season has many signature traditions. For me, Christmas Day means spending time with our family, eating good food, and watching a marathon of National Basketball Association games. As we enter the last week of the year, I expect that 2023 will end up being the warmest year on record. Changing climate brings new realities for extreme weather. Here’s what NBA shooters teach us about our “new normal” weather.

By now, many of you might be asking where I am going with this narrative. My son Anderson is on the varsity basketball team at Dacula High School. One of his specialities is the three-point shot. Candidly, the three-point shot has significantly changed the game at most levels. In 2021, NBA.com writer John Schuhmann said, “The league-wide 3-point rate (the percentage of all field goal attempts that have come from beyond the arc) has increased in each of the last 10 seasons, rising from 22.2% in 2010-11 to 39.2% last season.” The 3-point line was used by the American Basketball League in 1961, but the league was short-lived. In 1967, the American Bassketball Association brought the shot back as a part of its bid to compete with the NBA. The rest is history.

Ok, let’s get to the point of the article. Steph Curry, Trae Young, and Damian Lillard are some of the best 3-point shooters in the league. The distance from which they take some their shots is breathtaking. They routinely shoot (and make) from near the halfcourt logo. Damian Lilliard, Trae Young, Eric Gordon, and LaMelo Ball have some of the highest shooting percentages (over 37%) at distances greater than twenty seven feet. I often tell my wife that the NBA needs a 4-point line because “everyone” can shoot a 3-pointer. In other words, the league needs to adjust to the new realities of this generation of shooters.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment report was issued at the end of 2023 by the U.S. government. Legislation signed by Georga H.W Bush in 1990 created the U.S. Global Change Research Program to better understand and periodically assess climate changes. One of the key findings of the most recent report is that, “Observations show an increase in the severity, extent, and/or frequency of multiple types of extreme events.” Specifically the report notes:

• “Heatwaves have become more common and severe in the West since the 1980s (high confidence).
• Drought risk has been increasing in the Southwest over the past century (very high confidence), while at the same time rainfall has become more extreme in recent decades, especially east of the Rockies (very high confidence).
• Hurricanes have been intensifying more rapidly since the 1980s (high confidence) and causing heavier rainfall and higher storm surges (high confidence).
• More frequent and larger wildfires have been burning in the West in the past few decades due to a combination of climate factors, societal changes, and policies (very high confidence).”

The scientific literature also identifies more intense rainfall events over shorter periods of time.

Such “new normal” weather events create a problem for messaging and risk preparation. Many people tend to “anchor” in reference point events they have already experienced. It is not uncommon to hear people mention a past storm or event they “lived through” or “survived.” I remember hearing someone from Houston say, “It rains all of the time here.” Yet, Hurricane Harvey (2017) dumped between fifty and sixty inches of rainfall on parts of the region. That’s not something anyone has experienced. Likewise, residents of southwest Florida referenced Hurricane Charley (2004), but Hurricane Ian (2022) was a very different and more dangerous storm.

In the same way that the NBA may need to extend its shooting line, society must develop a new mindset towards extreme weather events, risk mitigation, and resiliency. There is a decent chance that you have not seen a storm like the next one.

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