The NBA is not your father’s NBA and the proliferation of three-point shots has been at the center of controversy ever since the Boston Celtics tied the record for most 3-pointers made in a game on opening night against the Knicks.
Superstars are chucking threes at an alarming rate, with Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards averaging 13 three-point attempts per game from deep.
We have heard the criticisms from the NBA on TNT crew to Jason Whitlock’s scathing rant on the state of pro hoops that he delivered after watching the defending champs hoist 61 threes, with coach Joe Mazzulla still wanting more.
“Adam Silver has no qualifications for his job. This game is a joke,” Whitlock said on his Fearless podcast. The same way they changed up the rules a bit to feature Michael Jordan, said Whitlock, “somebody has to recognize that this hot garbage we are putting on the court and everybody is just jacking up threes. You know what? We’ve got to move the three-point line back and if we have to widen the court to make three-pointers harder. This three-point shooting is a mockery.”
The NBA is a worse product than the WNBA. In the WNBA, they actually compete against each other. The athletes care. In the NBA, it’s just a bunch of idiots drowning in money jacking up threes. pic.twitter.com/n2RGr2qWK7
“It’s become the jab, basically. Every boxer’s got a jab,” Jones said of the 3-point shot. “But (the 3-point shot)’s not supposed to be a jab. It feels like it’s supposed to be an uppercut, an option, something that you have.”
FS1 sports personality Nick Wright urged the NBA to consider rule changes and also start listening to the fans more when it comes to what they want to see transpire on the court.
Wright doesn’t think this current three-point infatuation is a sustainable model for NBA success in America.
“I’m here to tell you, the league needs to change the rules,” Wright said. “Similar to what baseball did with the shift and the pitch clock and it paid immediate dividends, if your customer is telling you the product is getting worse even though the talent is getting better, then you need to adjust.”
Longtime Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan retired from The Boston Globe in 2012 after four decades. He has witnessed most of the great NBA moments in modern history throughout his illustrious career and his words describing this current style change and the historical perspective he brings to the argument isn’t encouraging.
“For me, the 3-point shot is the single worst thing to happen to basketball in my lifetime,” Ryan told Fox News Digital. “And let’s back up for a little history. The ABA did not introduce the 3-point shot. The ABA absorbed the 3-point shot. The 3-point shot, as we know, was a gimmick of a promoter. That man being Abe Sacks, the impresario of the Harlem Globetrotters who founded a league in 1961 called the American Basketball League he hoped would be an opposition to the NBA.
“That league lasted a year and a half; it folded in the second year, but he had a 3-point shot because he needed a gimmick. The Eastern League, which was a league I was quite familiar with, having grown up in Trenton, New Jersey, and we had a franchise. I was a big fan of the Eastern League, (they) adopted the 3-point shot. And when the ABA came into being in 1966, clearly it needed gimmicks, and they had them: the 3-point shot and the red, white and blue basketball. But just keep in mind that is the derivation of the 3-point shot.”
Blame Steph Curry?
When Steph Curry was hoisting up shots it was compelling and understood that it was a unique package of his game that made HIM unique. The style itself, however, lacked the athleticism and creativity that previously separated NBA talents, and in the eyes of many, became something everybody can do. Or at least attempts to do so…almost every time up the court.
Jones expressed that the rules of a sport and the cultural style of its product should be based on what is most compelling, not on teams using metrics to attain the slightest edge or take over the sport.
The longtime ESPN writer and TV personality, activist and former late night show host, used veteran midrange assassin DeMar DeRozan as a prime example of why the game is rotten.
“Hoopers talk about (DeRozan) much differently than the people watching because we’re looking at it in terms of the numbers. But in the end, we watch basketball because it’s fun to watch,” Jones said.
“And DeMar DeRozan is fun to watch. I like watching artists. And this current style of play and where I think people have got this misunderstood is the rules incentivize certain styles. So people are going to do that. Styles make fights, and you typically have to juke the rules a little bit to then encourage people to play in a lot of different ways. There aren’t that many guys that I think about where I’m just like, I love their game.”
NBA Needs To Follow Baseball, Listen To Fans, Adjust Rules For Rapid Change
Jones echoed Nick Wright’s sentiments about how MLB appeased years of complaining fans by finally incentivizing stealing bases. It was a drastic change for sure. They expanded the bases from 15 inches on each side to 18 inches, a change that MLB Hall of Fame voter Rob Parker refers to as bases now being “the size of pizza boxes.”
Also, they limited the number of pickoff attempts to two. If a pitcher wants to throw over a third time, then he has to pick the runner off or it’s an automatic balk.
Those tweaks changed the game dramatically. Stolen bases jumped. So has baseball’s ratings and viewership. Game 3 of the World Series on Monday drew an average audience of 13.6 million across all Fox Sports platforms and won its only head-to-head competition with the NFL during the World Series, as the “Monday Night Football” game between the Giants and Steelers drew an average of 13.4 million on ESPN and ABC.
Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuna became the first player in history to steal 70 bases and hit 40 or more homers in a season in 2023, the year the rule changes were implemented. This season, Shohei Ohtani became the first baseball player in history to steal 50 bases and hit 50 bombs. Rickey Henderson could steal 200 bases under these current rules. BUT, the fans have responded positively to more traditional baseball returning. Not just a home run fest, which would be the equivalent of what we have now in the NBA with three-pointers being the main marketed skill.
MLB Responded To Fan Complaints: Changed Rules To Encourage Return OF Stolen Bases
Stolen bases are also an artform that displays speed, timing and creativity that creates chaos for opposing teams. Jones pointed to the creativity in DeRozan’s game as an example of how undesigned drives to the basket and post play are forgotten skills eroding the quality of play in the league. Similar to baseball, the proliferation of statistical analysis into the league has gradually created a basketball culture where players focus on three-point range from adolescent stages of development.
“We enjoy those things, but three is so much more than two now that everybody’s going to stand out there,” Jones said. “And next thing you know … Anthony Edwards is taking 13 threes a game so far this year.”
These days, NBA games are won and lost based upon how well they are stoking the three that night. To many, it’s a one-dimensional hit and miss style that is eliminating some gifted players from blessing the NBA with the many impactful styles that existed throughout its history.
