To expound, if a team has an eFG% of 50% and an ORB% of 30%, then you can calculate the expected points per 100 possessions each of 2pt shots and 3pt shots: 3pt shots only: 100 (33.3% of 100, or 33.3 made) + 20 (33.3% of 30% of 66.6, or 20 ORBs & 6.7 made) + 4 (33.3% of 30% of 13.3, or 4 ORBs and 1.3 made) = total of 124 points (on average) from 100 possessions and 24 ORB's (actually goes to 125 if you carry it out a couple more calculations). 2pt shots only: 100 (50% of 100, or 50 made) + 15 (50% of 30% of 50, or 15 ORBs & 7.5 made) + 2.5 (50% of 30% of 7.5, or 2.5 ORB's and 1.25 made) = total of 117.5 points (on average) from 100 possessions and 17.5 ORB's. Factoring in ORB's makes a significant difference between 2's and 3's, depending on the ORB%. 0% ORB, and there's no difference; at 30%, it's a 6.22% increase. As the ORB% goes up, the impact of 3's over 2's increases.
Why is the 3pt shot a bad thing all of a sudden? I don't get it. It's still the 3rd most efficient shot behind Free throws and shots at the rim.
Its a great shot. Nobody is discounting the value it has to winning. Many are concerned at how its ever increased use has changed the game. The midrange game and big men have been rendered insignificant, often useless. Anthony Davis is one of the most gifted physical prospects we've seen. But he's valuable shooting threes. Do we really want a game where its valuable to have Anthony Davis on a basketball court shooting threes? I want to see him inside displaying his skills. I can't image if Hakeem and Ewing had to be moved from the paint to shooting threes to be most effective. If you put Drexler in today's game with these rules he may not be a hall of famer because he had a mediocre 3 point shot. Even Michael Jordan wouldn't be as dominant because he did all his damage driving to the hole, posting up and in the midrange. Those areas aren't as effective anymore. The rules, analystics, and increased shooting skill of all players has made it most effective to launch record three's. To many that has made the game of basketball less interesting. It's not a Steph Curry thing either; he would be dominant in any era. He is shooting over 60% behind 28feet! Move the line back might even help him the most. The issue is all the stretch PF's in the game, the absence of traditional Buck Williams or Maurice Lucas style players in basketball, the realization that Ben Simmons who is missing a 3 point shot is a mediocre wing even if he is elite at all other aspects of the game.
How about just getting rid of the three point shot altogether? Blasphemy, I know, but there are so many good outside shooters the court would still be opened up, which I think was at least part of the original idea behind the three point shot.
I think all this talk about the 3pt shot taking over the game and making big men irrelevant is bull. If big men seem to be irrelevant, it's simply because their is a shortage of talented ones. Of the 50 career leaders in True Shooting percentage, how many of them are current "3 point ballers". If they are eclipsing the old timers, there should be quite a few, but actually, there are only 4. Curry is #7 on that list, and he deserves it because he's a hell of a shooter, but only 1 player above him is a guard, Dave Twardzik.
Hearing more talk about this notion in the wake of GSW's comeback series win. I wonder--rather than moving the 3 point line (or in concert with moving it back incrementally), what if they just eliminated the shorter corner 3? Keep the arc a consistent distance from the hoop all the way to the sideline. I wonder what kind of impact that would have on scoring, spacing, and shot selection.
My first thought is that teams would stop guarding the corner, pack it in, and focus on guarding the arc out top. So cut down on threes and maybe clog the middle more? Probably not what the NBA marketing department would want.
Why mess with it? The average height of an NBA player was 6-7 in 1980, which was just before the dawn of the "golden era" of the nba. Today it is still 6-7. It was 6-6 going back to 1962. So players have not gotten that much taller. Points per 100 possessions last season was 106.4, which ranks 21st amongst all nba seasons. Of those 21 top offensive seasons, 11 came in "pre 3pt mania era", where there were less than 15 attempts per game. What they might want to address, if anything is pace. Teams are playing at a much slower pace these days than they did in prior years. You could knock down the 24 shot clock down to 20. The 3pt line OPENS the mid range game because it's a low priorty to defend. It also opens the lane, because other wise, you'd see teams just packing the middle and we'd see long 2pt jump shots all game. Especially with modern defensive rules. Mark Cuban is a smart guy, but this is a stupid idea IMO.
Or a 5lb medicine ball so Draymond can "dribble" it off of people's faces like he's on some and1 shit.
The league wide percentages haven't really changed much, but the number of 3-point attempts has skyrocketed. And, that may be part of Cuban's point. Back in ancient times, when teams were attempting less than 10 3-pointers per game, most teams had one 3-point shooting specialist and a large percentage of 3-point attempts were desperation attempts to beat the shot clock or at the end of a quarter. Then, when league wide 3-point attempts jumped up to about 15, most teams had a couple good 3-point shooters. Now, with the league wide average up to almost 25 3-point attempts per game, it's no longer a specialized skill. It's the rare player who doesn't have the 3-pint shot as part of their arsenal. The 3-point shot has gone from a specialized skill that was used to keep defenses from packing the paint to an integral part of nearly every possession and low post moves have gone from a critical part of a team's scoring to a specialized skill teams use to collapse defenses to get even more open 3-pointers. The pendulum has swung from a big man dominated low post game to a guard dominated game of long range Pop-A-Shot*. BNM * Not saying that's a bad thing, that's just the way it is. And for the record, I still hold the high score on the Pop-A-Shot at the local Chuck E. Cheese's. Take that bitches!!
If some team gets really good at scoring inside, are we going to raise the basket to 11 feet? Or how about convert the no charge zone to an area where no offensive player can go? Or maybe we can making dunks worth 3 points to encourage players to go inside.
While I agree that the current court dimensions aren't ideal for modern NBA athletes, this is a change who's scope is probably untenable. It wouldn't simply be that every NBA court and stadium has to change. Every college and high school and rec center would need to change, as they all use regulation size and I doubt people will want to play on what would essentially be a random size at that point.
Install a windmill in front of the rim. Not only will players have to be accurate, they will have to time their shots to avoid the rotating blades of the windmill. It will also help with the globalization of the league as we increase our TV ratings in Holland. BNM
