When a Missed Heave Belongs to the Team, Not the Shooter

Beginning with the 2025-26 NBA season, a missed end-of-quarter heave that meets the league’s reported criteria is recorded as a team field-goal attempt but not an individual field-goal attempt. The miss therefore lowers the team’s field-goal percentage without lowering the shooter’s personal percentage. The NBA’s announcement confirms both the 2025-26 implementation and the team-versus-player accounting change.

Related: Why Attempt Minimums Change NBA TS% Leaderboards.

The short answer: a qualifying miss is charged to the team

The important word is qualifying. The treatment does not cover every desperation shot, long three-pointer or buzzer attempt. It applies only when a missed shot satisfies the specified quarter, clock, distance and play-origin conditions.

For a qualifying miss:

• The team receives one field-goal attempt.
• The shooter does not receive an individual field-goal attempt.
• The shooter’s individual field-goal percentage is unchanged.

This creates an intentional difference between the team line and the player line. The shot remains part of the team’s offensive record, but the shooter does not absorb the percentage cost of attempting an unusually difficult end-of-period shot. The NBA’s early assessment of the heaves rule confirms this team-versus-player split.

The NBA approved the change in September 2025 after testing it during July Summer League play. Its stated objective was to encourage extremely long end-of-quarter attempts by removing the individual statistical penalty for a qualifying miss. The NBA’s announcement describes the Summer League trial, final approval and 2025-26 treatment.

The special treatment described by the NBA concerns qualifying misses. Owen Phillips of The F5 reported that an eligible make remains credited to the shooter, but the NBA announcement does not fully specify how a make is allocated across every individual and team statistical field. The core rule is therefore best stated narrowly: a qualifying missed heave becomes a team-only field-goal attempt.

The four conditions a missed heave must meet

A missed shot must satisfy all four reported conditions:

1. Clock: The attempt occurs in the final three seconds.
2. Quarter: It occurs in the first, second or third quarter.
3. Distance: It is launched from at least 36 feet.
4. Origin: The play begins in the backcourt.

These are the criteria stated in the NBA’s announcement. A shot does not qualify merely because it looks like a heave; it must satisfy the complete statistical test.

The quarter requirement places fourth-quarter and overtime attempts outside the reported special treatment. A 40-foot miss at the end of the fourth may look identical to a second-quarter heave, but it does not receive the first-three-quarters exception.

Distance alone is also insufficient. A 35-foot miss does not qualify, even if it is released with one second left in the third quarter after the play begins in the backcourt. Likewise, a 45-foot attempt taken with eight seconds remaining is not covered.

The backcourt-origin requirement is easy to miss. A long shot can fail the test if the play starts in the frontcourt, even when the quarter, clock and distance conditions are met. Where the play begins is separate from where the ball is released.

The detailed NBA report uses “at least 36 feet,” while an NPR headline and introduction used “more than 36 feet.” “At least 36 feet” is the better working formulation because it comes from the more detailed rule description. Even so, the reporting does not conclusively establish how an attempt measured at exactly 36 feet would be adjudicated; an actual boundary decision depends on the league’s official measurement and recording.

Examples illustrate the all-or-nothing test:

• 40-foot miss, 1.2 seconds left in the second quarter, play starts in the backcourt: qualifies.
• 35-foot miss, 1.2 seconds left in the second quarter, play starts in the backcourt: does not qualify.
• 40-foot miss at the end of the fourth quarter: does not qualify.
• 40-foot miss at the end of the third quarter, but the play starts in the frontcourt: does not qualify.
• 40-foot miss with four seconds remaining: does not qualify.

If any condition fails, the special team-only treatment does not apply.

Team-versus-player accounting: a worked box-score example

A team can finish with more field-goal attempts than the sum of the attempts listed for its individual players. That is not necessarily a box-score error; it can result from a qualifying team-only miss.

Shot result	Team-attempt treatment	Player-attempt treatment	Effect on player FG%
Qualifying miss	Adds one team FGA and miss	No individual FGA added	No change
Otherwise valid, ordinary nonqualifying miss	Adds one team FGA and miss	Shooter adds one FGA and miss	Usually decreases
Qualifying make	Included in team result	Third-party reporting says the shooter receives credit	Generally improves or does not reduce it

The second row covers an otherwise valid field-goal attempt recorded under ordinary scoring treatment. Fouls, releases after the horn, replay corrections and other special officiating or scoring situations are outside this comparison.

For an illustrative example, suppose a player is 5-for-10 before attempting a qualifying heave. The player misses. Because that miss is excluded from the individual line, the player remains 5-for-10, or 50%.

If the team was 40-for-80 before the same shot, it becomes 40-for-81. The team’s field-goal percentage falls from 50% to about 49.4%, while the player remains at 50%.

The accounting is:

• Player before: 5-for-10
• Player after the qualifying miss: 5-for-10
• Team before: 40-for-80
• Team after the qualifying miss: 40-for-81

Because the team gained an attempt that no player gained, summing every player’s FGA can produce a total one lower than the team FGA. Multiple qualifying misses can widen that difference.

Do not assume the team-only miss must also appear in a particular team three-point-attempt category. The NBA’s heave announcement does not establish every downstream statistical classification needed to support that conclusion.

Made shots require similar care. Phillips’ reporting on the Summer League treatment says an eligible make remains credited to the shooter. That supports the table’s limited description, but it does not provide a complete official account of every statistical category affected by a made heave.

The practical box-score rule is simple: when team FGA exceeds the summed player FGA, check for a qualifying missed heave before treating the totals as inconsistent.

Why the NBA changed the accounting

The old accounting created a conflict between the team’s interest and the player’s individual numbers. A long heave has a small chance of producing points, but under ordinary accounting a miss lowers the shooter’s field-goal percentage. Passing up the shot protects the percentage while eliminating the team’s chance to score.

The revised accounting changes that incentive. A player can take a qualifying shot without receiving an individual miss if it fails, while the team still records the attempt.

The NBA presented the policy as a way to encourage these low-probability shots. SportRadar estimated that players made about 4% of attempts meeting the cited quarter, timing and distance criteria in the previous season, according to the NBA’s announcement. That is an attributed tracking estimate, not an independently calculated official league rate.

Preliminary research is consistent with the intended behavioral effect. A working-paper abstract by James W. Kemper and Noah Liptack reports that players attempted 58% of identified heave opportunities before the reform and 94% afterward. The SSRN abstract describes the authors’ data period and research design.

Those figures are not a settled causal estimate. The paper is not identified as peer-reviewed, and the abstract alone does not provide enough detail to evaluate how “heave opportunities” were defined, how plays were classified or whether the estimates survive alternative specifications. The result is consistent with the rule’s intended incentive, but it does not by itself prove that the reform caused the entire reported increase.

A Reddit discussion of the study shows why readers have questions about fourth-quarter treatment and the research comparison group. It is evidence of disputed interpretation, not authority for the rule or the study’s causal estimates. For the statistical policy itself, the NBA’s criteria control: the special treatment applies to the first three quarters.

The broader lesson is that published metrics can shape behavior. When a player bears the visible cost of a miss while the possible benefit belongs to the team, avoiding the attempt can become individually rational. Moving a qualifying miss to the team line reduces that conflict without pretending the shot never occurred.

Shot validity and statistical attribution are separate questions

Whether a shot is valid and whether a miss is assigned to the team or player are separate issues.

The playing rules determine whether a basket counts. A shot released before time expires can remain live while in flight and may count if it enters the basket, subject to the normal end-of-period rules. A ball released only after the game clock expires does not produce a valid field goal. The NBA’s official scoring and timing rule explains the treatment of an attempt in flight when a period ends.

The heave policy answers a later statistical question: if a valid attempt misses, whose attempt is recorded? For a qualifying miss, the team receives the FGA while the shooter does not. The ordinary scoring and timing rules establish whether the play counts; they do not establish the special team-only attribution.

For box-score reconciliation, check four elements: quarter, clock, distance and origin of the play. A miss in the final three seconds of the first, second or third quarter, launched from at least 36 feet on a play beginning in the backcourt, receives team-only attempt treatment. If any of those conditions fails, the special heave exception does not apply.

That accounting break matters when comparing the team total with individual player lines—and when comparing shooting statistics from before and after the 2025-26 change.