Why the three pointer is ruining basketball

[Enasic]

I think most fans could agree that today’s 3 pt shooting contest style of play is awful. Here’s my proposal, which is drastic, but I do believe would make the game more interesting.

Move back the 3 pt line to 30 feet

What I think this will accomplish:

1. Less contested 3s. Players will take less contested 3s because of the distance. There would be less 3s in general, which will make the actual 3s being made more exciting and less of a layup

2. The “midrange” returns.

3. More of an emphasis on cutting/slashing, hi/low action, and ball movement

4. The paint becomes sacred again. If there are less 3s, points in the paint become (even more so) paramount again. Teams will really guard the paint and if you get in there, you will be met with heavy resistance. Nowadays, since 3s are so valued, when you’re in the paint teams more often than not barely put up any resistance.

5. Return of gritty defense. This may be wishful thinking with today’s players, but I do think it will improve.

What do you guys think? To be clear, I don’t think this will ever happen….at least not to the extent that I proposed, but curious to hear your thoughts, and if there are any potential benefits/negatives I’m missing.

 

[Crystallas]

My rule change wishlist.

-Restore hand checking rules. "Arm checking" just created more elbows, so they'll need to call the chicken wings that happen outside the key. Hand checks can not change the direction of a players momentum(the original problem that started the series of interpretation changes).

-Call carries. CALL FUCKING CARRIES. It's not our fault James Harden can't see where the ball is under his beard.

-More than 2 players outside the arc with 10 seconds on the shot clock is illegal offense, turnover, and technical foul+free throw on the 3rd team violation.

-And T up players that cry and complain. Stop giving LeBron a free pass, it makes the NBA look rigged. If you want superstar calls, then maybe let one slide per game, not 20x like it is now.

-Inbound violation if the team with possession doesn't pickup a rolling ball after 3 seconds of putting the ball into the playable area.

-Allow flops to be challenged, and players to get ejected upon review, call it Rules Interference Violation and only do it when it's absolutely clear.

- A player can make incidental contact with a shooter while shooter is in descension after a ball is no longer in possession of the shooter. Planting feet under a players landing area should be a technical foul, F1+fine if contact occurs, F2+fine if injury occurs(doctor verified), and a suspension if causes a player to miss time.

-Players boxing out for a rebound can not swing elbows in head space of other players.

-Any fragrant foul pertaining to protected physical zones(head, knees) will resort in a quarter loss minimum. The player will be ineligible for the final 12 minutes of a game, and any overtime that follows. Basically rolling back the seriousness of some of the fragrant twos that used to never be fragrant fouls to begin with, all while addressing player safety. NOT reverting the fragrant foul calls back to the 1980s, we don't want that either. Just dial it back enough to allow games to get more emotional and physical, find that sweet spot where the sport ends and the violence begins.

-Create an official player probation, Draymond Green, Bruce Bowen, Rodman rules, whatever youl want to call them. Define what puts a player into probation, have the NBA Players association agree on foul frequency and foul types make a player eligable, and determine how the probation is enforced. This way the players have less to complain about because they voted on it. It doesn't change how the rules are enforced, only changes how repeat offenders are handled.

-Teams are no longer allowed to hire retired NBA referees, it will be considered a tampering violation to contract any NBRA members for consultation. Call this the Mark Cuban rule that we finally needed to see. It was bad enough to hear refs come out about the scandals, even worse when you know teams can buy favor. Whatever information the refs give out, they need to give it to all teams equally and openly. among the members of the NBA.

-Teams can not provide personal assistants to players that make more than 25% of the league minumum, and after the rookie season. Big markets and deep pocket owners try to skirt the sallary cap by providing ammenities, and this is the big one now, as teams use it as proxy blank check for players.

-Reserve referees need to be subsituted into games. The central office has the right to pull any referee at any time to investigate any form of favor, especialy outcome tampering. Call them the Scott Foster rules if you want.

 

[clonetrooper264]

I think most fans could agree that today’s 3 pt shooting contest style of play is awful. Here’s my proposal, which is drastic, but I do believe would make the game more interesting.

Move back the 3 pt line to 30 feet

What I think this will accomplish:

1. Less contested 3s. Players will take less contested 3s because of the distance. There would be less 3s in general, which will make the actual 3s being made more exciting and less of a layup

2. The “midrange” returns.

3. More of an emphasis on cutting/slashing, hi/low action, and ball movement

4. The paint becomes sacred again. If there are less 3s, points in the paint become (even more so) paramount again. Teams will really guard the paint and if you get in there, you will be met with heavy resistance. Nowadays, since 3s are so valued, when you’re in the paint teams more often than not barely put up any resistance.

5. Return of gritty defense. This may be wishful thinking with today’s players, but I do think it will improve.

What do you guys think? To be clear, I don’t think this will ever happen….at least not to the extent that I proposed, but curious to hear your thoughts, and if there are any potential benefits/negatives I’m missing.

Logistical question, does this eliminate corner 3s? An arc 30 feet from the basket would presumably only go out to the wing area, so you're basically just shooting from Dame/Trae/Steph/Jimmer range only, aka logo 3s.

Philosophical question...what if players just start getting really good at shooting these deep 3s instead of going more inside like you desire?

 

[Enasic]

Logistical question, does this eliminate corner 3s? An arc 30 feet from the basket would presumably only go out to the wing area, so you're basically just shooting from Dame/Trae/Steph/Jimmer range only, aka logo 3s.

Philosophical question...what if players just start getting really good at shooting these deep 3s instead of going more inside like you desire?

Yes, it would eliminate the corner 3.

Players I’m sure will get better at that range overtime, but I don’t think it’ll be overnight. I think paint points and mid range would be more dominant. Teams aren’t just going to hunt down 3s.

 

[clonetrooper264]

-Call carries. CALL FUCKING CARRIES. It's not our fault James Harden can't see where the ball is under his beard.

-More than 2 players outside the arc with 10 seconds on the shot clock is illegal offense, turnover, and technical foul+free throw on the 3rd team violation.

Just a couple thoughts about these...

NBA player's hands are so big that probably some part of their hand is always under the ball...but a carry is technically defined as player's hand under the ball AND one of the following: carry from one point to another or bring to a pause and dribble again. I could see someone argue that Brook Lopez carries the ball on every single dribble in the video here, but by definition he carries only on the dribble where there's an obvious pause: Discontinued Dribble in the post | NBA Video Rulebook

My only point there is, perhaps some fans see carries where they don't exist by rule. Not saying you or anyone else here does that, but more of a general comment based on what I've seen commented across the internet. That said, there are still many uncalled carries. Obvious, blatant carries, so yes those should totally be called.

For 2 players outside the arc with 10 seconds left, kind of serves as forcing a reduction of space. I'm assuming the intent here is to force a return to the midrange and post play, with spacing similar to 90s basketball. However, zone defenses are still legal with your changes, so defenses could likely just start playing box and one type defense on the long perimeter player. Spacing wise this just seems very awkward offensively. I think all this really serves to do is eliminate drive and kick 3s later in the shot clock, either forcing an increased pace, or just making it easy for defenses to force bad shots (ie long 2s). Was there further intent behind this particular rule?

 

[clonetrooper264]

Yes, it would eliminate the corner 3.

Players I’m sure will get better at that range overtime, but I don’t think it’ll be overnight. I think paint points and mid range would be more dominant. Teams aren’t just going to hunt down 3s.

I have my doubts about that, just because players are already so good at shooting 3s these days. We only see a handful of players shoot from the logo, but I bet there's a lot more players who can, but don't because of their role. Payton Pritchard comes to mind right away, and he's kind of already known as a halfcourt specialist.

On principal though, I get it, with the 3pt line 30ft away there's so much space to work with offensively that getting a closer shot should be so easy, why shoot 30 foot 3s...and I think the answer is still inherently 3 > 2 and you only need to shoot 33% from 3 to equate to shooting 50% on 2s. Players today are already able to shoot close to 33% from 30 feet out.

This image is a bit old already, but even as of early 2023 we can see that players are certainly capable of shooting better than you'd think from that range. I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate, but the point on players improving may not be as far off as you'd think

 

[Enasic]

I have my doubts about that, just because players are already so good at shooting 3s these days. We only see a handful of players shoot from the logo, but I bet there's a lot more players who can, but don't because of their role. Payton Pritchard comes to mind right away, and he's kind of already known as a halfcourt specialist.

On principal though, I get it, with the 3pt line 30ft away there's so much space to work with offensively that getting a closer shot should be so easy, why shoot 30 foot 3s...and I think the answer is still inherently 3 > 2 and you only need to shoot 33% from 3 to equate to shooting 50% on 2s. Players today are already able to shoot close to 33% from 30 feet out.

This image is a bit old already, but even as of early 2023 we can see that players are certainly capable of shooting better than you'd think from that range. I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate, but the point on players improving may not be as far off as you'd think
View attachment 42278

Alright **** it, eliminate the 3 pt line. The half court line becomes the new 3…you want 3 points, do it the old fashioned way or shoot from half court

 

[clonetrooper264]

From what I've gathered on internet comments on the NBA generally, the "old heads" (frankly, we're all old heads now) ideal rule changes should look something like this:

-Revert the gather step rule. Before 2009, the steps after ending your dribble was consistent with NCAA and HS rules, namely one step after gather (or, as we'd know it, 2 steps without dribbling). The NBA/FIBA rule is currently 2 steps after ending your dribble (which looks like to most old heads, 3 steps, because we've always thought of ending your dribble as step 1 and the current rule says that is not step 1, the step afterwards is step 1). Taking away this "0 step" aligns NBA rules with HS and NCAA again, and several moves which we've seen become popular would then become illegal, in their current forms (ex the "Curry slide" or "Harden double stepback" and the Euro step, as it is performed now, would be travels). Step throughs remain legal, as they always have been, despite many people's ideas of the contrary.

-Bring back hand checking. Hand checking was made illegal in 2004 and allowed defensive players to have more physical contact with the offensive player on the perimeter to impede their movement. Pretty simple end result here, more physical defense allowed and less contact fouls called on the perimeter leading to less offensive effectiveness, or as we old heads would like to say, more defense.

-Generally speaking, allowing for more physical contact by the defense. Same as above hand checking rule reversion, but applied to the rest of the court. Bumps and swipes on drives and post moves would generally be called less, so offenses are more impacted. Of course, you still have to call fouls, but less touch fouls is what I think most people would want in practice here, or effectively, the defense can arm bar or otherwise "push back" on the offensive player more without incurring a foul.

Imo the only way to de-incentivize 3pt shooting at this point is to just remove the 3pt line...I don't think you can. Players shoot it too well now and there's too much analytical backing for it. This is a little extreme, so the only alternative I can think of is to eliminate every analytics department from every team, fire all the coaches, and only allow coaches with "old school" mindsets. Think Larry Brown types, or probably, anyone who thinks about 3s like you do. Otherwise, 3pt shooting is like Thanos...inevitable.

One rule change that I think most of these people wouldn't think of, but might actually have more impact on 3pt shots than you'd think, is adopting the FIBA goaltending rules, where players are allowed to play the ball once it hits the rim. This would make your athletic, non shooting bigs more valuable imo. 3pt shot hits the rim and might've come back down and gone in? Not anymore, if your defensive players can time it right, or jump high enough swat it away. But at the same time, an offensive athletic big would be allowed to tip the ball back in.

 

[Crystallas]

Just a couple thoughts about these...

NBA player's hands are so big that probably some part of their hand is always under the ball...but a carry is technically defined as player's hand under the ball AND one of the following: carry from one point to another or bring to a pause and dribble again. I could see someone argue that Brook Lopez carries the ball on every single dribble in the video here, but by definition he carries only on the dribble where there's an obvious pause: Discontinued Dribble in the post | NBA Video Rulebook

My only point there is, perhaps some fans see carries where they don't exist by rule. Not saying you or anyone else here does that, but more of a general comment based on what I've seen commented across the internet. That said, there are still many uncalled carries. Obvious, blatant carries, so yes those should totally be called.

For 2 players outside the arc with 10 seconds left, kind of serves as forcing a reduction of space. I'm assuming the intent here is to force a return to the midrange and post play, with spacing similar to 90s basketball. However, zone defenses are still legal with your changes, so defenses could likely just start playing box and one type defense on the long perimeter player. Spacing wise this just seems very awkward offensively. I think all this really serves to do is eliminate drive and kick 3s later in the shot clock, either forcing an increased pace, or just making it easy for defenses to force bad shots (ie long 2s). Was there further intent behind this particular rule?

Players used to dribble just fine without carrying. High School and NCAA rules are pretty much what I'm hoping the NBA re-adapts here. Will players need to adopt to a rule change, yes, of course. Will it ever leave my wishlist and make it into the rules? No, because such a rule change would taint the legacy of shitty ball handlers. The art of the carry has become this generations Knuckleball.

Fans will need to adapt just the same, but anyone used to how HS rules call travels will essentially be on my side of this. And most of the people who are used the NCAA enforcement of discontinued dribbles will get it right away. And most players are forced to play college ball, so really, this is not a huge change. It's just a matter of making it official.

To me the most exciting basketball play on offense, is when a player scores at the basket, in traffic, against all match-ups. Midrange.... I'm not trying to incentivize or force a broader use of a midrange. Call me indifferent to how the midrange games evolve. I don't want to see a return to Karl Malone post and play dominant offenses, but if it's there and it always has been, and it gets used more, that's fine. There are ways to guard postups. Olajuwon basically created the book(not the moves) covering 90% of the technical post set, then just a few years later, the league shifted to D'Antoni baloney. In my opinion, a generation was cheated on seeing the evolution of the post game, and instead bigs became guards.

And we've always had players who could shoot deep balls at a high level, but their percentages dropped considerably while contested. It was 25ft for the longest time in the ABL, maybe that's where you move the line back, take away sideline 3s. I don't know what that does, I haven't studied ABL basketball in the 60s. It could work until All-Sport comes along and in 2044 we get 100 yard courts with 20 foot tall hoops.

 

[Enasic]

From what I've gathered on internet comments on the NBA generally, the "old heads" (frankly, we're all old heads now) ideal rule changes should look something like this:

-Revert the gather step rule. Before 2009, the steps after ending your dribble was consistent with NCAA and HS rules, namely one step after gather (or, as we'd know it, 2 steps without dribbling). The NBA/FIBA rule is currently 2 steps after ending your dribble (which looks like to most old heads, 3 steps, because we've always thought of ending your dribble as step 1 and the current rule says that is not step 1, the step afterwards is step 1). Taking away this "0 step" aligns NBA rules with HS and NCAA again, and several moves which we've seen become popular would then become illegal, in their current forms (ex the "Curry slide" or "Harden double stepback" and the Euro step, as it is performed now, would be travels). Step throughs remain legal, as they always have been, despite many people's ideas of the contrary.

-Bring back hand checking. Hand checking was made illegal in 2004 and allowed defensive players to have more physical contact with the offensive player on the perimeter to impede their movement. Pretty simple end result here, more physical defense allowed and less contact fouls called on the perimeter leading to less offensive effectiveness, or as we old heads would like to say, more defense.

-Generally speaking, allowing for more physical contact by the defense. Same as above hand checking rule reversion, but applied to the rest of the court. Bumps and swipes on drives and post moves would generally be called less, so offenses are more impacted. Of course, you still have to call fouls, but less touch fouls is what I think most people would want in practice here, or effectively, the defense can arm bar or otherwise "push back" on the offensive player more without incurring a foul.

Imo the only way to de-incentivize 3pt shooting at this point is to just remove the 3pt line...I don't think you can. Players shoot it too well now and there's too much analytical backing for it. This is a little extreme, so the only alternative I can think of is to eliminate every analytics department from every team, fire all the coaches, and only allow coaches with "old school" mindsets. Think Larry Brown types, or probably, anyone who thinks about 3s like you do. Otherwise, 3pt shooting is like Thanos...inevitable.

One rule change that I think most of these people wouldn't think of, but might actually have more impact on 3pt shots than you'd think, is adopting the FIBA goaltending rules, where players are allowed to play the ball once it hits the rim. This would make your athletic, non shooting bigs more valuable imo. 3pt shot hits the rim and might've come back down and gone in? Not anymore, if your defensive players can time it right, or jump high enough swat it away. But at the same time, an offensive athletic big would be allowed to tip the ball back in.

Would love your first 3 proposals. I’m pretty indifferent about the goaltending proposal, though. There’s not a ton of those opportunities to make a bit difference…pretty neutral on it either way.

One thing about hand checking though….would that lead to an increase in the dreaded rip through fouls?

Also, call carrying/palming religiously. Not sure what Giannis or KD would do.

 

[clonetrooper264]

Would love your first 3 proposals. I’m pretty indifferent about the goaltending proposal, though. There’s not a ton of those opportunities to make a bit difference…pretty neutral on it either way.

One thing about hand checking though….would that lead to an increase in the dreaded rip through fouls?

Also, call carrying/palming religiously. Not sure what Giannis or KD would do.

Giannis would basically not be allowed to dribble in the 70s/80s game. I'm pretty sure they changed the rules on carrying over time almost on a decade by decade basis because it used to be you literally couldn't dribble with your hand anywhere except the top of the ball. Even side of the ball (which I think is where things start to get really weird between the average joe and the pros because their hands are way bigger than ours) was not allowed initially.

We rarely see palming ever called in the game today, and the only time I remember it really being called in my lifetime is against Iverson to illegalize his crossover (ironically today that is a basic skill move taught to kids).

There's so many dribbling moves that would be illegal if we were to revert back to say 60s/70s dribbling rules. Would that make the game more "pure"? I'm not entirely sure. But that's a philosophical thing at that point.

No doubt the game has evolved, and would have regardless of these rule changes, it's just evolved in a way that most people of our age seem to hate (perhaps just because that's not how it was "back in my day").


Also for rip through fouls, those should still be illegal imo, so keep the current rule for that in this scenario.

 

[Enasic]

Giannis would basically not be allowed to dribble in the 70s/80s game. I'm pretty sure they changed the rules on carrying over time almost on a decade by decade basis because it used to be you literally couldn't dribble with your hand anywhere except the top of the ball. Even side of the ball (which I think is where things start to get really weird between the average joe and the pros because their hands are way bigger than ours) was not allowed initially.

We rarely see palming ever called in the game today, and the only time I remember it really being called in my lifetime is against Iverson to illegalize his crossover (ironically today that is a basic skill move taught to kids).

There's so many dribbling moves that would be illegal if we were to revert back to say 60s/70s dribbling rules. Would that make the game more "pure"? I'm not entirely sure. But that's a philosophical thing at that point.

No doubt the game has evolved, and would have regardless of these rule changes, it's just evolved in a way that most people of our age seem to hate (perhaps just because that's not how it was "back in my day").


Also for rip through fouls, those should still be illegal imo, so keep the current rule for that in this scenario.

I’m pretty sure I remember Jordan being called for palming in the 93 finals against the Suns. Could be wrong…but I vaguely remember the suns bitching about it and it eventually got called…quite possibly multiple times.

If Gianni’s wasn’t allowed to dribble, that’d be fine with me. I hate watching him play…Carries and palms the ball every possession and is allowed to completely run people over…and he can’t shoot. Just ugly basketball IMO

 

[clonetrooper264]

I’m pretty sure I remember Jordan being called for palming in the 93 finals against the Suns. Could be wrong…but I vaguely remember the suns bitching about it and it eventually got called…quite possibly multiple times.

If Gianni’s wasn’t allowed to dribble, that’d be fine with me. I hate watching him play…Carries and palms the ball every possession and is allowed to completely run people over…and he can’t shoot. Just ugly basketball IMO

TIL that carrying and palming are actually the same thing...lmao how did I go through life not knowing that?

Carrying (basketball) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Enasic]

TIL that carrying and palming are actually the same thing...lmao how did I go through life not knowing that?

Carrying (basketball) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lol I obviously didn’t either

 

[clonetrooper264]

Players used to dribble just fine without carrying. High School and NCAA rules are pretty much what I'm hoping the NBA re-adapts here. Will players need to adopt to a rule change, yes, of course. Will it ever leave my wishlist and make it into the rules? No, because such a rule change would taint the legacy of shitty ball handlers. The art of the carry has become this generations Knuckleball.

Fans will need to adapt just the same, but anyone used to how HS rules call travels will essentially be on my side of this. And most of the people who are used the NCAA enforcement of discontinued dribbles will get it right away. And most players are forced to play college ball, so really, this is not a huge change. It's just a matter of making it official.

To me the most exciting basketball play on offense, is when a player scores at the basket, in traffic, against all match-ups. Midrange.... I'm not trying to incentivize or force a broader use of a midrange. Call me indifferent to how the midrange games evolve. I don't want to see a return to Karl Malone post and play dominant offenses, but if it's there and it always has been, and it gets used more, that's fine. There are ways to guard postups. Olajuwon basically created the book(not the moves) covering 90% of the technical post set, then just a few years later, the league shifted to D'Antoni baloney. In my opinion, a generation was cheated on seeing the evolution of the post game, and instead bigs became guards.

And we've always had players who could shoot deep balls at a high level, but their percentages dropped considerably while contested. It was 25ft for the longest time in the ABL, maybe that's where you move the line back, take away sideline 3s. I don't know what that does, I haven't studied ABL basketball in the 60s. It could work until All-Sport comes along and in 2044 we get 100 yard courts with 20 foot tall hoops.

I'll say this, I am 100% for all the levels (HS/NCAA/NBA/FIBA/WNBA/etc) having the same rules across the board. The difference between HS and other levels is almost a different game once played out (pun intended?).

What's interesting to me is that for a lot of the old heads now, "pure" basketball is found at the HS level, meaning the American HS level. Non-American players grow up playing FIBA rules their whole lives, which are closer to NBA rules than not. Perhaps this plays part of into why/how the worldwide basketball game has caught up to the American. What is considered "fundamental" isn't the same depending on where you live, which I find to be odd.

 

[Enasic]

I just think the old school rules make the game more challenging. It’s not as impressive when you could take extra steps, carry, and defenders could barely even touch you. And if they don’t touch you…you could jump into them to get the call or pull the rip through. Just lame basketball IMO

Guys are so athletic these days and physically imposing, you don’t need to give them any advantages by making the rules any easier or reward contact that’s initiated by the offensive player.

 

[Crystallas]

There is some kind of stigma to admitting that some things from the past were better, and some new things were nothing more than an experiment.

When you talk with young players, they either embrace shot chucking and hiding carries, or see it as something that only exists because of the mentality that 'It ain't cheating if you don't get caught'. A mentality, that I might add, that doesn't work when you can watch live games with improving detail and definition every year. So then it's clear to me when we see specific old things that are better and see which new things are better, because we literally have had the opportunity to put these things under the microscope.

New things, such as;
-Flagrant foul reviews and the speed they are able to conduct booth officiating in the NBA(unless they milk it for commercial revenue).
-Half step fakes, perfectly fine by me. If a player never establishes the dribble or clear possession then uses a transitional step to advance, that's a travel in 1979 but today its seen as a smart move and I agree.
-Andre Miller back to basket style that point guards would never attempt in the NBA, is now seen sprinkled around any point guard who has been in the league for over 5 years.
-Underhanded lob shooting styles that every position uses today that was rarely seen in the past because it would get called as a travel on 2 steps.
-Adaptive Zones, illegal before, now it's great, mixes the matchups, speeds up the game, less sloppy screens.

These are good evolutions.

 

[Scoot26]

Imo the only way to de-incentivize 3pt shooting at this point is to just remove the 3pt line...I don't think you can. Players shoot it too well now and there's too much analytical backing for it. This is a little extreme, so the only alternative I can think of is to eliminate every analytics department from every team, fire all the coaches, and only allow coaches with "old school" mindsets. Think Larry Brown types, or probably, anyone who thinks about 3s like you do. Otherwise, 3pt shooting is like Thanos...inevitable.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle by banning threes.

I think you're better off fixing some of the three point shooting with loosening certain defensive rules on the perimeter. Issue I have now is that you have 5 guys on the floor that just sit around the 3 point line as the ball rotates in the hope someone is open enough to eventually shoot it. I get that the analytics and all that says shooting threes is better. How does one limit that? I don't know. Frankly I liked the era where only guards/wings shoot threes and the center and PF played the posts. As Crys says, the mid-range game, is probably the most boring spectator aspect of an NBA game. While many love dunks, driving to the basket, etc... I always enjoyed the open three point attempt, and many probably feel like me. What I don't need though is 70 3PA per game (an exaggeration, but I feel like we're close to getting there).

I also think it's possible the higher % of shooting threes can be attributed to the landing space rule that was put into effect in 2017. While it's a good rule in theory, players haven't adapted defensively very well to it. It leaves players with more space to be open and nail them threes.

 

[clonetrooper264]

You can't put the genie back in the bottle by banning threes.

I think you're better off fixing some of the three point shooting with loosening certain defensive rules on the perimeter. Issue I have now is that you have 5 guys on the floor that just sit around the 3 point line as the ball rotates in the hope someone is open enough to eventually shoot it. I get that the analytics and all that says shooting threes is better. How does one limit that? I don't know. Frankly I liked the era where only guards/wings shoot threes and the center and PF played the posts. As Crys says, the mid-range game, is probably the most boring spectator aspect of an NBA game. While many love dunks, driving to the basket, etc... I always enjoyed the open three point attempt, and many probably feel like me. What I don't need though is 70 3PA per game (an exaggeration, but I feel like we're close to getting there).

I also think it's possible the higher % of shooting threes can be attributed to the landing space rule that was put into effect in 2017. While it's a good rule in theory, players haven't adapted defensively very well to it. It leaves players with more space to be open and nail them threes.

The more casual the fan, probably the only exciting aspects of basketball are: dunks, acrobatic layups, blocks, and maybe heavily contested shots. Essentially, just feats of athleticism (especially if heavily contested shots is removed from the list). Jump shots are boring, even 3s, unless they are heavily contested, or shot from a great distance...I'm guessing most casual fans could at least appreciate the level of difficulty of the shot in that case.

However, to those who have a deeper appreciation of the game of basketball, things like ball movement, player movement, defense as a whole, start to stand out more. The more you dive into the game, the more you will appreciate things like the art of the midrange or swinging the ball around for open 3s. There is a beauty to it. Probably why you, and likely others here, can at least appreciate an open 3.

The hatred of the 3 pointer across the internet is an interesting one. People might hate on Wemby now for shooting as many 3s as he does. He shoots about 9 per game on 34%, not exactly eye popping numbers. People might say "just get in the paint, you're so tall no one could ever stop you" which is true to a degree. At the same time, who is going to stop his jumper? If we're honest, many of the most dangerous offensive players in NBA history had some degree of ability to score on all three levels. Sure you got your Shaq's and your Wilt's, those who couldn't really score outside of the paint who would overwhelm you with combination of size and athleticism, but you also have those like a Demarcus Cousins, who could score in much the same way, but also could shoot the ball. Or even the two level scorers like Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan and Lamarcus Aldridge, those who showed the value of a big who could shoot. Heck even guys like Knicks Bill Cartwright showed some of that in an era where if you were that tall you better not shoot beyond 5 feet. I wonder how many at that time would have said that someone like Cartwright shooting free throw line jumpers was ruining the integrity of the game if given the same voice of those today. These are evolutions that you can say were good ones.

The fact of the matter is, the jump shot, and by extension the three pointer, are an integral aspect to the game of basketball as we know it. And no true basketball fan would question that. I think the volume 3pt shooting today is just a natural extension of player skill and the fact that 3 points is more than 2. It's just more efficient offense, less wear and tear on the body too (though the hilarious irony of that is that players today are injured or "injured" far more often than the 90s, but I think that's due to the AAU system and other factors). While you and I would probably agree maybe somewhere in the 20-30 3PA range is pretty reasonable for an NBA game, the game itself feels opposed to that. Like, if you can shoot 3s, why would you not, especially if open? Strategically, if you have a player who is able to get any bucket 1v1, or at least beat his defender, and the nearest help defender has to leave a 38% 3pt shooter in the corner to stop the layup, it's a legitimate question of how do you stop that? And perhaps the next evolution of basketball is a defense that can somehow do that.

All this to say, I don't think there is a way to de-incentivize the 3. At most rule changes could just make it easier to defend the 3...an extreme example, if suddenly the defense was allowed to undercut a 3pt shooter without penalty, I bet there'd be a lot less 3s.

 

[Crystallas]

However, to those who have a deeper appreciation of the game of basketball, things like ball movement, player movement, defense as a whole, start to stand out more. The more you dive into the game, the more you will appreciate things like the art of the midrange or swinging the ball around for open 3s. There is a beauty to it. Probably why you, and likely others here, can at least appreciate an open 3.

Appreciation goes both ways. You're making a parallel argument from how many people who are addicted to watching golf as a spectator sport, defend the fine appreciations. And I'm more like, sports played should be organized, but sports watched should be entertaining.

Before anyone bites my head off... let me make the counter point.

When you watch players now, you can see some mutual regard for the ease of just allowing some 3s to get open. Because, like you said, there is an appreciation to the play, and even though player 4 in the chain needs to whip out and cover the space created, player 4 can still defend that shot, but chooses not to. If they choose to defend it, the percentages go from 45% to 35%, and 10% is enough for a player to quit and say, "Why bother". And that's what you see and then don't appreciate as a fan of the deeper side. It's when you appreciate the game, you don't appreciate seeing a million dollar player quitting for a few seconds here, a few seconds there. And that same defender will be 1-2 seconds late getting back for making the choice of closing in, and they don't want to become the offensive player that squanders their opportunity to contribute to a positive offensive stat column.
*And of course, that could be player 4 in the chain to react to ball movement, it could be player 2, the number doesn't matter. This is just the first common scenario you'll see for the signature Celtics Ray Allen 3 slice that basically became modified circle sets. Player 4 stops, gives up, and runs back to offense as the now-open shooter pumps, leaving fate to whoever is boxing out, and thus if they need to run back, that player 4 jumps into the lane as a way to cover up their fk-up, nobody has time to be like WTF, because they all do the same thing too. Over and over.