The NBA is an ever-evolving landscape, with the league always trying to find new ways to enhance not just the viewer experience but also the quality of the sport. Last season, we saw Commissioner Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA executives introduce several changes- from bringing in a flopping penalty to adding another coach’s challenge. And we knew that this upcoming 2025-26 campaign was going to be no different. However, no one expected the rule change to be this huge!

ESPN’s Shams Charania has sent the basketball world into a frenzy after he announced that the league is bringing a change to the end-of-period heaves. “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.” He reported.

This simple change can have a lot of implications. A range of NBA stars have been accused of shying away from these attempts simply because they do not want their efficiency to drop, such as LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

This means that all the missed shots in the final three seconds of the first three quarters, taken from the outer edge of the center circle (approximately 36 feet from the attacking basket), will be adjusted from a player’s field goal attempt percentage. However, if the player makes a shot that meets all the above criteria’s then he will be credited with a standard made field goal attempt. Also, if the shot heave is blocked by a defender, even though the attempt will be counted as a team field goal attempt, the defender will get the block.

This is massive news for the players, as several of the NBA superstars have been reluctant to make long-range shots in the dying seconds of the first three quarters. In fact, this has already been tested in the NBA’s G League last season, and it seems that the competition committee found it to be worthy of being finally introduced to the NBA. So now, we can expect to see many more insane attempts being made with this new rule in place. But doesn’t it make you think which superstars will benefit the most from this rule?

The new heave rule change is set to be a game-changer for Nikola Jokic and Stephen Curry

More often than not, a significant number of NBA stars did not take heaves, thinking that it would negatively affect their shooting percentage. New Houston Rockets superstar, Kevin Durant, is a good example of this, as the Slim Reaper hasn’t shot a single heave since 2018. However, even then, there were players like certain players who did not think twice before launching a long-ranger.

This featured the likes of Nikola Jokic, as the Denver Nuggets star, led the league last season in shooting heaves with 22 to his name. However, even that isn’t the most insane part about the stat, with the Joker shooting double the amount of the next person on the list, who was the Knicks’ Mikal Bridges with 11.

By doing so, the three-time MVP broke Stephen Curry’s record of launching 20 heaves during the 2016-17 season. Even though the Serbian only made two of those 22 attempts, it’s safe to say that none of the people present in the audience would ever forget those shots. That’s because out of the two, one was a 62-footer against the Jazz, while the other was even further, almost from 3/4 length of the court.

These shots yet again paired the big man with arguably the only other heave enthusiast, Steph Curry, as they are the only two players to make two 60-foot shots in a single NBA season. Hence, not only do these players show the tendency to score as much as possible, they also do not care about their three-point efficiency by taking shots that are unlikely to land. Last season, Nikola Jokic went 41.7% from the three-point zone while Curry had an efficiency of 39.7%, also a healthy number. The stats would have been higher had the rule change come before, which is a tantalizing prospect to say the least.

The rule change, on paper, logically dictates that players who take last-ditch attempts will see a boost to their 3-point efficiency, which will be exciting to track through the season.