Mar 21, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant (7) dribbles against the Miami Heat in the first half at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images
Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images
Everybody keeps saying the midrange shot is basically extinct, and yet the players actually running NBA offenses never got that memo. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander lives there. Nikola Jokic is on his way to greatness. Kevin Durant has built half a Hall of Fame case out of that patch of floor between the paint and the arc.
The starting point for this list is last season’s numbers. Jokic and Rui Hachimura tied at 55.9% from midrange, the best mark among qualified players, with Gilgeous-Alexander right behind at 54.9%, then Tim Hardaway Jr. at 53.9%, Tre Johnson at 50.4%, and Jalen Brunson at 49.8%.
But a pure percentage list would be lazy here, because hitting 56% as a team’s fourth choice is a completely different job than generating four or five contested pull-ups a night as the number one option on a title contender.
So this ranking also weighs volume, shot difficulty, and how much of the shot the player is actually creating for himself. That’s the reason Stephen Curry and Kawhi Leonard land well above where raw efficiency alone would place them, while a few very clean, low-volume shooters sit closer to the back of the list.
20. De’Aaron Fox
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 0.9 FGM, 1.9 FGA, 44.6% FG
De’Aaron Fox shot just 44.6% from midrange last season, easily the softest number in this entire top 20, so putting him here leans heavily on what we already know rather than what actually happened in 2025-26. He still ran the Spurs to the tune of 18.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 6.2 assists, and the pull-up remains a real weapon simply because defenders have to start backpedaling the moment he gets a runway.
That’s genuinely the whole engine of his midrange game. Fox doesn’t wander around the floor hunting a specific spot the way DeRozan does, and he doesn’t have Durant’s frame to just shoot over the top of a contest. What he has is speed, and speed alone opens up the elbow area for him constantly. Once the defender starts guarding the drive, Fox can stop on a dime and rise into the short pull-up before the big has any real chance to recover.
The 44.6% keeps him pinned to the bottom, because plenty of players were simply more efficient last year, and I wouldn’t fight anyone who left him off this list entirely based on one season alone. But we’re ranking who these guys are entering 2026-27, not copying a spreadsheet. Fox has enough of a track record creating this shot off the bounce to sneak in at the very end, though he clearly needs a bounce-back year to keep his seat.
19. Tim Hardaway Jr.
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 0.6 FGM, 1.1 FGA, 53.9% FG
This one will raise a few eyebrows, but the numbers are too strong to just wave off. Tim Hardaway Jr. shot 53.9% from midrange in 2025-26, fourth among qualified players, while putting up 13.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.4 assists across 80 games. He also finished third in Sixth Man of the Year voting before taking a one-year, $6.5 million deal with the Heat this summer.
His game has quietly evolved with age. The three is still his bread and butter, though he’s also grown comfortable attacking a hard closeout, taking one or two dribbles inside the line and getting into his jumper before the defense can reset. That should translate well in Miami, because Giannis and Bam are going to collapse a defense on nearly every possession.
I’m not expecting 53.9% again, that’s absurd shooting by any measure, but even with regression, he stays a genuinely good midrange scorer. For a 34-year-old role player, sitting this high on a list stacked with stars says plenty.
18. Tre Johnson
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 0.9 FGM, 1.9 FGA, 50.4% FG
Tre Johnson makes this list after one scary good rookie season, and his jumper simply looked ready for the league from day one. The No. 6 pick in the 2025 Draft averaged 12.2 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.0 assists while hitting 50.4% of his midrange attempts, fifth best among qualified players.
What lets me put him ahead of Hardaway despite the thin resume is that this was supposed to be his calling card. Johnson came into the league as a difficult-shot scorer with real touch around the elbow, and that skill carried over faster than most rookie tools usually do.
Volume is the next question. Johnson wasn’t running a star’s offensive workload and averaged only 12.2 points, so there’s no fair comparison yet to Booker, Brunson, or SGA. But shooting 50.4% from one of the hardest zones on the floor as a 20-year-old rookie is a real starting point.
Washington is still building around a very young core, so his touches should climb in 2026-27, and this ranking could look old fast. If Johnson keeps his efficiency anywhere near 50% while taking on more self-created attempts, he’s got a real path to becoming one of the league’s best young three-level scorers.
17. Desmond Bane
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 0.9 FGM, 1.8 FGA, 48.3% FG
Desmond Bane isn’t the name most people reach for when the midrange conversation starts, mostly because his three-point shooting is absurdly good, but that’s part of what makes this side of his game work so well. He put up 20.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists for the Magic last season while shooting 48.3% from midrange.
Defenders have to respect him from outside because he’ll punish any space at all from three, and that forces hard closeouts that naturally open up the area just inside the arc. I like him here specifically because the midrange fits into how the Magic actually use him.
At 48.3%, he was already ahead of some bigger names last season, but I’m keeping him at 17 because he doesn’t yet have the volume or the years of history behind him that the guys ranked above him carry. Still, as long as defenses keep treating Bane primarily as a three-point threat, that midrange jumper should keep finding good looks.
16. CJ McCollum
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.3 FGM, 2.8 FGA, 46.9% FG
CJ McCollum has essentially lived in this part of the floor his whole career, and even at 34, it remains the most dependable part of his offense. He averaged 18.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 3.9 assists last season and shot 46.9% from midrange, with NBA.com data showing 20.9% of his total points came from that zone, fourth highest in the league.
That second number is exactly why he ranks above a few more efficient shooters on this list. McCollum treats the midrange as a genuine part of his scoring diet, not an accident. He loves getting a defender leaning during a pick and roll, snaking back toward the middle of the floor and stopping around 15 feet right before the drop can fully step up, and he’s been running that same script for over a decade now.
Atlanta clearly still values it too, handing him a one-year, $21.0 million extension after his late-season push helped carry the team. For a veteran who isn’t getting all the way to the rim as easily as he once did, holding onto this level of midrange efficiency is probably the single biggest reason he’s still close to a 19-point scorer.
15. Rui Hachimura
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.2 FGM, 2.1 FGA, 55.9% FG
If this list were sorted purely by percentage, Rui Hachimura would be tied for first. He converted an absurd 55.9% of his midrange attempts last season, matching Jokic for the league’s best mark among qualified players, while averaging 11.5 points and 3.3 rebounds after an absurdly efficient shooting year, posting 44.3% from deep and over 55% in the playoffs.
So why is he only 15th? Volume and role, plain and simple. Hachimura isn’t creating contested jumpers against a team’s best defender in isolations. Most of his midrange looks come after somebody else has already collapsed the defense to let him get into the shot he wants. That’s still a great skill, especially since 55.9% is ridiculous no matter the context, but it’s a completely different job description than what SGA or Durant handle on a nightly basis.
He’s now on the Clippers heading into 2026-27, and honestly, I think staying inside a simple role could help him keep this up. If he starts pushing for five difficult pull-ups a night, that 55.9% disappears fast. But if he keeps taking the shots that come to him, there aren’t many role players I’d rather have shooting an open 15-footer.
14. Jamal Murray
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.6 FGM, 3.5 FGA, 45.5% FG
A 45.5% midrange mark looks fairly average next to some names below Jamal Murray, but context flips the whole picture, because he uses this shot far more than most guards ever will. NBA.com had 22.5% of his total points coming from midrange, third highest in the league, while he put together a career year at 25.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 7.1 assists.
The efficiency needs to climb if he wants to move up this list, since 45.1% sits much closer to average than elite. But I give him real credit for creating this shot under actual playoff pressure. We’ve all watched him bury a stunning number of difficult midrange jumpers during deep postseason runs for many seasons, with game winners and epic scoring marks.
That’s the real gap between him and Hachimura. Rui blew him away in raw percentage last season, but Murray has to manufacture his shot against defenses built specifically to take it away. After finally breaking through as an All-Star and All-NBA player in 2025-26, I still trust the pull-up enough to keep him comfortably inside the top 15.
13. Devin Vassell
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.2 FGM, 2.4 FGA, 48.8% FG
Devin Vassell had one of the more interesting midrange seasons in basketball. He shot 48.8% overall from that zone, but the wilder number came on the longer midrange attempts, where he hit 54.5% on a sample of at least 100 shots, the best mark in that group.
That tracks if you’ve watched him for any length of time, because the jumper has always looked completely natural on him. Even in a season where his overall production dipped to 13.9 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.5 assists, that piece of his game never wavered.
The real question is what his role even looks like going forward, because San Antonio has so many mouths to feed now. Fox runs the offense, Wembanyama swallows up a massive share of it, and the other young pieces need touches too, so Vassell might never turn into a 20-point-a-game guy hunting five midrange looks a night.
But that could actually help the efficiency. He can operate as a secondary scorer, punish defenses whenever they overreact to the stars, and keep attacking whatever gets left open. At 48.8%, with an even stronger number from deeper inside the arc, Vassell has earned a spot well above what his scoring average alone would suggest.
12. Brandon Ingram
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.6 FGM, 5.4 FGA, 47.0% FG
One of the last old-school wings, Brandon Ingram still looks completely at peace taking a tough 18-footer, and last season, he shot 47.0% from midrange while putting up 21.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.7 assists across 77 games.
His whole scoring identity is built around this area. At 6-foot-8 with absurdly long arms, he doesn’t need much separation to get a shot over a defender, and he loves using one or two dribbles to buy just enough room before rising into the jumper.
The odd part heading into 2026-27 is his actual team situation. The Clippers agreed to bring him in as part of the Kawhi Leonard trade, but the deal was put on ice while the league looks into possible salary-cap circumvention, so where he actually plays this season is still up in the air.
Wherever he lands, the midrange game isn’t going anywhere. Ingram’s been doing this for years and probably always will, because it fits both his frame and his pace perfectly. I’d like to see the percentage tick up a bit more before slotting him into the top ten, but in terms of pure self-created midrange skill, he belongs firmly in this group.
11. Joel Embiid
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.6 FGM, 5.6 FGA, 46.3% FG
Joel Embiid might be the hardest player on this list to rank, since availability keeps derailing the whole conversation, but on the nights he actually plays, there may not be another center leaning on the midrange jumper this hard. 26.2% of his points came from midrange last season, the highest share in the entire league, while he averaged 26.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 3.9 assists.
His percentage landed at 46.3%, which isn’t Jokic or SGA territory, but the volume and difficulty here are unlike almost anything else at the center position. Embiid regularly catches around the nail, squares up, jab-steps the defender, and just rises straight over him. If he’s crowded, he drives or draws the foul, so trying to defend everything at once is basically a losing game.
I have him outside the top ten because he only suited up for 38 regular-season games, and 46.3% isn’t quite elite enough to look past that. But if Embiid can string together 60-plus healthy games for the superteam 76ers next to LeBron, Maxey, and Jaylen Brown, he could jump several spots.
10. Cade Cunningham
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.4 FGM, 2.8 FGA, 48.6% FG
Having size at the point guard spot is such a massive edge, and Cade Cunningham is definitely the main prototype. He shot 48.6% from midrange last season while running the Pistons at 23.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 9.9 assists, and those pull-ups are a big reason defenses simply can’t drop against him in the pick and roll.
At 6-foot-6, he can get into the paint, keep a defender pinned behind him, and still see the entire floor at the same time. If the center sags off, he’s got that jumper from the free-throw line. If he steps up, he can dump it to Jalen Duren or find a shooter in the corner. The midrange shot is really the weapon connecting his scoring and his playmaking.
What I like most is that 48.6% isn’t coming from some easy, low-pressure role. Cade has the ball on nearly every possession, and defenses know exactly what he wants, especially after Detroit turned into a 60-win team and he started drawing much more attention every single night.
He’s only 24, so there’s room for this to get uglier for opponents. If that number climbs into the 50% range without the rest of his offense slipping, guarding Detroit’s pick and roll becomes miserable. For now, top ten feels fair without putting him above guys who’ve been doing this at an elite level for a lot longer.
9. Donovan Mitchell
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.2 FGM, 2.4 FGA, 49.4% FG
Donovan Mitchell just had probably his best midrange season yet, finishing at 49.4% while averaging 27.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.7 assists for the Cavs. Before the All-Star break, Mitchell was shooting 52.3% from midrange, which was then a career high and third among players with at least 100 attempts.
Mitchell’s always had the burst to get all the way to the basket, but this side of his game is what actually makes him a nightmare to guard in the playoffs. Teams can load up on him to take away the three and the drive, but if he can comfortably make close to half of his middy, that coverage isn’t really doing much of anything.
The only reason he’s not higher is the level of competition ahead of him. Everyone from here up has more volume, better efficiency, or a much longer track record dominating this exact area. Still, 49.4% on Mitchell’s kind of workload is excellent, and if that early-season stretch was any indication, a full year above 50% isn’t out of reach.
8. DeMar DeRozan
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 3.2 FGM, 6.3 FGA, 48.0% FG
It feels almost wrong ranking DeMar DeRozan just eighth on a midrange list, but that’s where the current numbers put him. He shot 48.0% from midrange last season while averaging 18.4 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 4.1 assists across 77 games with the Kings.
Even so, nobody on this entire list has built more of a career out of this exact shot. DeRozan has spent years turning what people called inefficient basketball into a completely legitimate weapon, because he consistently gets to the exact spots he wants, draws contact, and almost never looks rushed once he reaches the elbow.
That 48.0% mark is still good, though it’s not quite enough on its own to keep him ahead of younger stars putting up similar or better efficiency at a bigger scoring volume. He’s 37 now, and still waiting to land on a new contender, so his role next season could look a lot smaller than what we’re used to seeing from him.
7. Devin Booker
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.3 FGM, 5.1 FGA, 46.0% FG
Devin Booker remains one of the league’s true high-volume midrange scorers, and that’s the biggest reason I have him ahead of DeRozan even with a lower 46.0% mark last season. He averaged 26.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 6.0 assists, and this part of the floor stays central to how he attacks defenses that chase him off the three-point line or wall off the paint.
His footwork is probably what stands out most. He doesn’t need to dribble forever, because he can get into a pull-up from just about any angle, use his shoulder to buy separation, and always stay pretty well balanced. The Suns also run so much offense through him as an on-ball creator that these aren’t assisted looks.
The 46.0% keeps him just outside the top five, since it’s a noticeable step below the very best shooters on this list. Still, one slightly weaker shooting season isn’t nearly enough to erase how consistently he’s lived in this area throughout his prime.
He’s also walking into 2026-27 as the clear offensive engine in Phoenix again, so the volume should stay heavy. If he climbs back toward 49% or 50%, Booker slides right back into the top five, because very few guards match his combination of midrange volume, footwork, and self-creation.
6. Stephen Curry
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.1 FGM, 2.2 FGA, 51.0% FG
What happens well behind the three-point line is the Stephen Curry dominion, which makes it almost funny how ridiculous he still is once he steps inside it. He shot 51.0% from midrange last season while averaging 26.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 4.7 assists at age 38.
The volume isn’t anywhere close to Booker’s or DeRozan’s, mostly because Curry usually has better options available. A pull-up three from him is already an efficient shot, so there’s little reason for him to spend a whole game hunting midrange shots. But that’s exactly what makes his attempts so dangerous. Defenders are typically sprinting at him expecting the three, and Curry can simply step inside that extra couple of feet and finish with a short jumper or a floater instead.
I wanted him above Booker because 51.0% is a genuinely big efficiency gap, and this isn’t some role player cashing in wide-open makes. This is Stephen Curry taking these shots while defenses still treat him as the single biggest perimeter threat on the floor. The only thing keeping him at six is volume, since everyone in the top five leans on the midrange as a much more central piece of their offense.
5. Kawhi Leonard
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.9 FGM, 4.0 FGA, 46.4% FG
Strangely enough, Kawhi Leonard “barely” shot only 46.4% from midrange last season, so putting him at five is really where history starts outweighing recent form. Dropping him near ten because of one shooting season would ignore basically a decade of work, especially considering he still averaged 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.6 assists across 65 games.
Kawhi’s midrange approach has always been brutally simple. Get to around 15 feet, use his strength to move the defender just enough, rise straight up and shoot right over him. He’s never needed a fancy dribble package or a ton of space, because he can create room and shoot over almost anybody.
Even last season, when his overall midrange number wasn’t special, his longer midrange percentage was stronger at 47.3%, proof the actual shot hadn’t disappeared. And remember, this was still a player averaging almost 28 points a night, having a bounce-back season with a huge uptick in games and minutes played than last year.
Everything around him right now is uncertainty. The reported trade sending him to Toronto remains on hold because of the league’s investigation into the Clippers, so his 2026-27 home base isn’t fully settled yet. Wherever he ends up playing, I still trust this shot completely.
4. Nikola Jokic
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 1.0 FGM, 1.8 FGA, 55.9% FG
Nikola Jokic doesn’t look anything like a traditional midrange scorer, which is probably why people undersell this part of his game. He simply made 55.9% of his midrange attempts last season, tied for the best percentage among qualified players, while averaging 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds, and 10.7 assists.
That efficiency is almost silly, because Jokic doesn’t rely on one single move. He can square up and shoot it, back a defender down and fade away, release with one hand off balance, throw up something ugly off the wrong foot late in the clock, and somehow make all of it look routine.
That’s the real separator with him. The midrange shot isn’t its own isolated skill, it’s just another branch on the same decision tree. Give him space, he shoots 55.9%. Crowd him, he works closer to the rim. Send extra help, he probably just finds someone else for an easy bucket.
So why not first, given the raw percentage? Mostly because SGA, Durant, and Brunson lean on midrange self-creation more heavily as pure perimeter scorers. But on efficiency alone, Jokic has a completely legitimate case for the top spot, and there’s basically no coverage in the league that comfortably takes this shot away.
3. Jalen Brunson
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.1 FGM, 4.2 FGA, 50.2% FG
Jalen Brunson shot 50.2% from midrange last season while averaging 26.0 points and 6.8 assists, and there might not be another undersized guard in the league who generates this kind of shot this consistently without elite vertical pop.
His strength does a lot of the heavy lifting. At 6-foot-2, he can absorb contact without getting knocked off his line, which lets him keep a defender pinned behind him and control exactly what his next move is. Once both feet are set, that jumper has become one of the safest shots in the Knicks’ whole offense.
The statistical gap between him and Jokic is obvious, since Jokic shot 55.9%, but I’ll give Brunson a slight edge here for how much sheer perimeter creation is involved. He has to manufacture this shot against guards chasing him around screens and centers waiting in the paint, and he’s still making roughly half of them.
After leading the Knicks to the 2026 championship, there’s essentially zero mystery left for defenses on this part of his game, and it still works anyway.
2. Kevin Durant
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.6 FGM, 5.4 FGA, 48.2% FG
Kevin Durant sitting at two almost feels low when you consider he might be the best pure midrange shooter of his generation. He averaged 26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.8 assists last season and made 48.2% of his midrange attempts, still top ten among qualified players.
The career numbers are the real story here. Durant shot 52.1% from midrange over the previous decade, per NBA stats, and is the only player in the shot-location era with five separate seasons at 50% or better on at least 200 midrange attempts, including four straight seasons at that point.
Last season’s 48.2% sits a touch below his usual insane standard, which is exactly why SGA gets the top spot after a stronger 2025-26. But I need a lot more than one season under 50% before dropping Durant far down a list like this. Heading into his age-38 season, this is still probably the single offensive skill I trust most to hold up as the rest of his game eventually slows.
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
2025-26 Mid-Range Stats: 2.9 FGM, 5.2 FGA, 54.9% FG
Nobody else deserves the top spot after what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did last season. He shot 54.9% from midrange while averaging 31.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 6.6 assists, as he went 197-for-359 between the paint and the three-point line in the playoffs. The reigning MVP made close to 200 of these shots while every single opponent knew exactly where he wanted to get.
NBA.com‘s scoring breakdown also showed 23.2% of his points came from midrange, second only to Embiid, so this wasn’t some occasional counter move. It was a massive chunk of a 31-point-a-night scoring profile. And SGA’s process is almost frustrating to watch as an opponent, because he never looks rushed. If the defender gets too aggressive trying to crowd him, he blows right by them to the rim or draws the foul, so there’s no answer to any of it.
Durant has the deeper career resume, and Jokic technically edges him on percentage, but nobody combines last season’s midrange volume, efficiency, and pure self-creation quite the way SGA does. Shooting 54.9% on this much volume as the primary scorer on a championship-level offense is genuinely ridiculous. Heading into 2026-27, he’s the standard everyone else on this list is still chasing.