The Gravity Report
THE 644
1 JOKIĆ 97.8 · 2 GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER 92.9 · 3 WEMBANYAMA 85.7 · 4 ANTETOKOUNMPO 83.9 · 5 DONČIĆ 83.0 · 6 LEONARD 77.3 · 7 CUNNINGHAM 70.3 · 8 TOWNS 69.3 · 9 MITCHELL 68.1 · 10 MAXEY 67.3 · 11 BALL 66.8 · 12 HOLMGREN 66.6 · 13 CURRY 66.5 · 14 DUREN 65.9 · 15 BARNES 65.8
Deep Dive №3 · Preseason 2026–27

The Last of His Kind

For ten seasons no player who refused to shoot threes was in the top ten, until Jalen Duren.
Francesco Freedman · The Gravity Report · the GRAVITY player-value model · published October 17, 2026 · forecasts score April and July 2027
Not a research paper. This is an article, typeset in LaTeX: independent analysis, not peer reviewed.
v1 — methodology and figures verified against public sources as of October 17, 2026. This article will be revised.
Abstract. Every other player in our top ten last season took at least 22% of his shots from three. Jalen Duren took none of them, and our per-minute rating still put him as the 7th best player in the league. That hasn't happened in over a decade. From 2015 to 2025, there wasn't a single player who never shot threes that finished in the top ten. Back in the 2004–05 season there were four of them, including the best player in the league. Today we look at how that kind of player has disappeared, how Duren is a top player without having a skill that is more important than ever in the modern game, and why we rank him 14th. Duren and the Pistons were in a four-month-long contract standoff, but now that it's finally over and he's getting paid $200 million over the next five years, we give it an 80% chance that he finishes top 15 next July.

What's in the article

  • The odd one out: the ten best players per minute last season all took at least 22% of their shots from three, except Duren, who took none (GRAVITY Historical, 1,500+ minutes).
  • Ten years without one: in 2004–05 four of the top ten were pure non-shooters, Kevin Garnett first among them. From 2015–16 through 2024–25 the count was zero.
  • How he does it: .688 true shooting on a 23.6% usage rate, 20.9% of available rebounds, a free throw for every two shots. First in efficiency under load among the 164 players with 1,500 minutes.
  • Why we rank him 14th: the playoffs. His playoff BPM of −1.7 against Cleveland and Orlando cost him 4.3 points of gravity score, the only player in The 644 at the floor. Without it he would rank 8th.
Page 1 of the article: the ten best players per minute in 2025–26 with their three-point attempt rates; Duren's is .000.
The top ten, and the odd one out (p. 1). Our ten best players per minute last season and the share of their shots taken from three.
Page 2 of the article: non-shooters among each season's ten best players since 1979–80; the bars fall to zero after 2014–15, and the one bar at the right is Duren.
Ten years without one (p. 2). Non-shooters among each season's ten best players, 1979–80 to 2025–26. The single green bar at the right is Duren.
Page 3 of the article: Duren's season by component, the Cleaning the Glass detail, and why The 644 ranks him 14th.
How he does it, and why 14th (p. 3). His season part by part, where the efficiency comes from, and what the playoffs cost him.

The forecast

Jalen Duren ranks top 15 in The 644, July 2027 edition.
80%
#1–15 = Win · #16–20 = Near miss (graded as a miss) · #21 or below = Miss. Our own ranking; we keep one bet on it each article so the model gets graded too.
Jalen Duren posts the highest 2026–27 BPM among players listed at center with a three-point attempt rate below 10% and 1,500+ regular-season minutes.
60%
Basketball Reference, final regular-season table.

The thin line marks 50%, a coin flip. External predictions are graded on Basketball Reference by April 30, 2027. Registered October 17, 2026, before the October 18 freeze; scored by Brier score in the Forecast Ledger.

Read the full article (PDF, 4 pp) LaTeX source The Forecast Ledger

Cite this article

Freedman, F. (2026). "The Last of His Kind: For Ten Seasons No Player Who Refused to Shoot Threes Was in the Top Ten, Until Jalen Duren." The Gravity Report, GRAVITY Deep Dive No. 3, v1.
https://thegravityreport.com/notes/duren/