How the NBA is doubling down on its love of the 3-pointer

— -- DeMarcus Cousins set his feet beyond the 3-point arc, waiting for the pass from his new teammate Rajon Rondo.

The 270-pound Sacramento big man had just set a screen for his point guard and popped out for the trifecta. Rondo fed the big fella the ball without hesitation, and Cousins unfurled a 3-pointer. Missed. Next play, same thing: Rondo/Cousins pick-and-roll with another errant 3. Later in the second quarter, a Cousins 3-pointer ... in transition. Back iron. Cousins has taken 10 3-pointers this preseason, making one.

Meanwhile in Chicago, Fred Hoiberg's Bulls shot 39 3-pointers in his NBA coaching debut; the Bulls' regular-season franchise record is 34. In May, Larry Bird told ESPN.com that he "never liked" 3-pointers and then his Pacers promptly dumped Roy Hibbert, drafted a center with 3-point range and now has power forward Paul George shooting more 3s than anybody in preseason.

With 3s going up everywhere, it is Cousins who is the symbol of the modern NBA. He might be the most physically imposing post player around, but even he's crashing the NBA's ongoing 3-party. He didn't take a single 3-pointer in the 2014-15 preseason, but under George Karl, Cousins is launching them up like he's Stephen Curry.

It's clear the 35-year war over the 3-pointer is over. After the Golden State Warriors won the championship while establishing a new Finals record of 67 made 3-pointers, the early signs point to the NBA not just embracing the 3-pointer, they're doubling down. To answer Phil Jackson's infamous "seriously, how's it goink [sic]?" tweet from the playoffs, 3s are goink up. Way up.

Threes on the rise

There is no bigger trend in the NBA than the skyrocketing rate of 3-pointers. With more than 90 games of preseason in the books, the average team is taking 25.1 trifectas per game, up from 21.8 last preseason, which represents a 15 percent surge. How does that compare to the 2014-15 regular season? We saw teams shoot 22.4 3-pointers per game last season, almost identical to the preseason rate.

And that's the funny thing. Our instincts tell us that preseason is the time for teams to go into the lab, experiment with some things and maybe ditch them later. Maybe, you might say, 3s are just a preseason fling. However, dating to 2010-11 when RealGM.com data tracking begins, preseason 3-point rates have just about mirrored the regular-season rates. In fact, teams actually launch slightly more 3-pointers in the regular season than the preseason, which runs counter to conventional wisdom.

As you can see, 3-point rates are surprisingly sticky whether it's October or January. Given the historical trends of 3-point rates in preseason and regular season, we'd expect the average team to shoot 26.1 3-point attempts per game in the upcoming regular season.

In fact, at this rate, we'll witness the biggest growth in annual 3-point volume since the league moved the line back in 1994-95. The typical season sees about four percent growth in 3-pointers from the season prior. This season, we're looking at quadruple that with a 16 percent increase.

To put the current climate in perspective, the 2004-05 Phoenix Suns won an NBA-high 62 games while firing up 24.7 3-pointers per game -- far and away the highest frequency in the NBA that season. With Steve Nash leading the way, the Suns pretty much revolutionized the sport. Now the average team is shooting more than that (25.1). What was deemed radical a decade ago is now the standard.

If we control for pace and look at 3FGA as a percentage of overall FGA, we also see a close relationship between preseason and regular season. This preseason, we're seeing 30.4 percent of all shots coming from beyond the arc, which would be steep enough to rank eighth-highest among all teams last season, right behind Golden State. The NBA is changing fast.

Which teams are joining the '3 party'?

Erik Spoelstra has seen the trends.

"This preseason right now, everybody's playing with space and everybody's playing fast," the Heat coach said. "The first open 3, people are taking it."

The Heat are firmly in the minority by taking fewer 3s these days, but Spoelstra expects his team's 3-point frequency "will get a little higher than what we're seeing now" once Hassan Whiteside returns and draws attention in the paint.

Spoelstra already saw firsthand the most ambitious overhaul, the Charlotte Hornets offense, which launched 30 3-pointers against the Heat about a week ago. The Hornets last season ranked as the worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA with a conversion rate of just 31.8 percent. Rather than shy away from the 3, coach Steve Clifford is taking the opposite approach: fire when ready. The Hornets are averaging 27.3 3-point attempts per game thus far, up from 19 last season. That's not by accident.

"If you look at trends in this league, 3-point shooting percentage was the No. 1 factor in why teams won," Clifford said before reciting a barrage of statistical nuggets off the top of his head. "The five best 3-point shooting teams were the four teams who played in the conference finals and then the Clippers. All five of them were top 10 all-time in the NBA. That's the way this league has gone."

Clifford didn't flinch when he saw Cody Zeller pull up and make a pair of 3-pointers in Oct. 4 against the Miami Heat even though Zeller had taken two such shots in his two-year career. Clifford wants stretch 4s. Hence, the Frank Kaminsky pick.

"It makes sense, right?" Clifford says of higher volume of 3-point shooting. "It creates spacing which opens up things for everybody else. You gotta be able to shoot 3s. We're going to try to play four-out a lot more."

With Michael Kidd-Gilchrist out for the season with a torn labrum, look for the Hornets to ramp up their 3-point shooting even more to compensate for his loss. The Bulls are following suit. The most the Bulls shot under the more traditional Tom Thibodeau was 33 against the Magic in 2014 -- which was a triple-overtime game. Now, the Bulls average that much per game.

Hoiberg's not the only new coach who's emphasizing the 3-pointer. In New Orleans, Alvin Gentry appears to be taking the 3-heavy approach from Golden State and implanting it in the Big Easy. The team launched 32 triples in its preseason debut; the team never shot more than 30 in any game under Monty Williams. Oh, and Houston? The Rockets are shooting 36.3 3-balls per game, up from a record-smashing 32.7 last season.

The new stretch bigs

Like Cousins, Anthony Davis is stretching it out this season under Gentry. On Friday, Davis made two 3-pointers against the Atlanta Hawks, a team that regularly plays five players who can shoot the 3. Davis drained one from the left corner and then another from the top of the key. He scored 20 points in 26 minutes.

"He's going to be open to shoot 3-point shots," Gentry said of Davis. "We're not going to do a Channing Frye where he goes from 13 3s to 172."

All across the league, we're seeing paint-dwellers showcasing freshly-groomed 3-point shots. Take, for example, Wizards big man Kris Humphries, who drained two 3-pointers on Oct. 6, matching his 11-year career 3-point total. These weren't last-second halfcourt heaves. Humphries worked all summer to add the 3-ball to his repertoire after the coaching staff nudged him at the end of last season.

"I haven't really worked on shooting 3s, like really worked on it, ever," Humphries told the Washington Post. "Now I've got to adapt to what we're trying to do. It's different. I'm still getting used to it."

Humphries has shot 5-of-16 on 3-pointers in three preseason games, making him closer to Rashard Lewis these days than the bruiser he was. Another guy who's falling in love with the 3-pointer? Paul George. Much has been made about his slide to the power forward slot, but more startling is the fact that he's launched 25 3-pointers in 74 minutes, which is the equivalent of 12.1 3s every 36 minutes. As a team, the Pacers shot 16.1 3s every 48 minutes as recently as 2011-12 when the team was a No. 3 seed in the East. Even Brooklyn center Brook Lopez is taking 3s now.

Preseason trends aren't always predictive. (The Minnesota Timberwolves went 5-2 last preseason, for instance). But historically, 3-point shooting rates in the preseason carry more signal than noise. The question isn't whether we'll see more 3-pointers in the NBA this season; it's how many thousands more.