Starting next season, NBA box scores might look a bit different. Fans of the Boston Celtics love Payton Pritchard and his halftime buzzer beaters. Well, in 2025-26, he might be encouraged to take those shots even more.
According to the latest reports, the NBA wants to change a rule so that end-of-quarter half-court shots, more popularly known as heaves, will not count towards a player’s field goal percentage, only the team’s. The subtle stat change might make life easier for players who love to shoot from half-court or even ¾ court.
No More Punishment for Buzzer-Beaters Gone Wrong in NBA
The latest report comes from ESPN’s Shams Charania, who revealed the NBA will implement a rule change that might encourage players to take desperation shots.
The NBA will implement a new change for the 2025-26 season: unsuccessful end-of-period heaves will now be recorded as a missed field-goal attempt for the team, not the player, sources tell ESPN. Those long heaves will no longer impact an individual player’s percentages.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 10, 2025
That might encourage players to take even more long-range shots. The league tested the new rule during the Summer League in July. Now, it will head toward the official regular season.
Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic Can Benefit from the New Rule
Here is an interesting stat. Steph Curry has led the league in “heaves” attempted for five seasons. He even did it for three straight seasons, from 2014-15 to 2016-17. For the last two years, Nikola Jokic has earned that title. Curry also has the record for most makes, seven such shots.
Last season, Jokic attempted 22 heaves and made only two of them. That certainly hurt his field goal percentage. Given that Jokic often gets the ball in the last seconds, we can assume many of those were desperation shots. Even with such attempts, he still shot 57.6% for the season.
Other players well-known for launching shots at the buzzer, sometimes just to try their luck, include Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard, LaMelo Ball, and, before his retirement, JR Smith. Fans who watched Smith’s career remember him as one of the most frequent heave-shooters.
Players Want to Protect Their Field Goal Percentage
Many years ago, there was a story that Kevin Durant didn’t want to attempt heaves. At the time, Scott Brooks was the coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he encouraged players to take that last-second shot at halftime. If they make it, great; if not, so be it. At the time, KD gave his thoughts, saying:
“It depends on what I’m shooting from the field. First quarter, if I’m 4-for-4, I let it go. Third quarter, if I’m like 10-for-16 or 10-for-17, I might let it go. But if I’m like 8-for-19, I’m going to go ahead and dribble one more second and let that buzzer go off and then throw it up there. So it depends on how the game’s going.”
This might be the reason why for years, KD has been known as one of the most efficient scorers in the game. He is a career 50/39/88% shooter.
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