To truly understand the increasingly prominent, yet to some, alienating, world of basketball analytics, begin by tossing out your preconceived notions of the term. The word "analytics" has been buzzed about, lauded, reduced, confused, and misapplied over time. Recognizing how to properly incorporate its methods has never been more important to understanding and appreciating the NBA. In The Midrange Theory , author and NBA analyst for The Athletic Seth Partnow takes fans on a tour through the finer points of how the NBA game actually fits together, not only searching for the ever-evolving answers from within the analytics community but just as importantly, asking the right questions along the way. Covering a breadth of illuminating inflection points in NBA history -- from shot selection to pre-draft evaluation to measuring defensive impacts to the importance of considering aesthetics and ethics while doing metrics -- Partnow deftly explores where we are, how we got here, and what might be next in basketball science.