NYT graphic: Where the Heat and the Thunder Hit Their Shots

Even if you don't care for basketball, you should love the geographic shot analysis of the final two teams.  A few comments:

1. Some of the coloration appears broken, where a region on the chart has a "high" coloration but a low actual points per shot for the region (see, for example, the orange region on the right side of LeBron James' chart).  They appear to be regions with low numbers of shots, but that should be fixable with a decent spatial statistics algorithm.  
2. It might be better if more of the micro-regions were combined. 
3. You should look in particular at James Harden's chart (on the right, mid-page).  This is the reigning "6th man of the year", and you can tell how smart he is by his shot selection.  While he's athletic enough to get shots anywhere on the court, he eschews the midrange jumper because 3-pointers and shots near the rim are high-value shots.  In fact, the best part of the graphic, from an unintentional comedy standpoint, might be the "analysis" that states "However, he has virtually no midrange game; a vast majority of his shot attempts occur at the rim or beyond the arc, not many occur in between."  As if that's a problem with his game!  Midrange jumpers, even for a very good shooter like Durant, are not a high points-per-shot shot!