Nope. This is all wrong and will not help. Especially when this would end the career of curry and Lillard, etc.
The answer is to completely eliminate flopping. What this would result in is teams unable to put smaller players in at the 5. We saw this the other day when Draymond Green was able to “play defense“ versus Zach Edey. This particular group of referees did not bail out green every possession and Zach feasted. Extrapolate that through the entire league and you would infuse a whole bunch of huge guys back in the game. Able to root down towards the basket. Able to get a million offensive rebounds. Thus offsetting The amount of threes taken. Allow a 7 foot one guy to absolutely destroy the 6,8” guy trying to defend him with flopping. This is the only fix.
If you dropped the 1999 Knicks in 2025 they would be neutered because of flopping.
I don't think this would affect Curry that much. Maybe I'm a homer, but I think he gets physically manhandled quite a bit. Does this mean he couldn't shoot the same volume of 3's or maybe he'd have to go father back to create more space, probably. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I like this take and the commenter who recently advocated for eliminating the euro step. The author the piece from CBS seems to hate post play, mid range play, low scoring, and upsetting anything including the "lost revenue" from expanding the court? He also doesnt really believe the NBA has a problem. I do apprecriate the piece as a form of published brainstorming but the NBA may need to act with more of a sense of urgency than his piece carries.
My hot take is I don't believe current 3 point volume is a turn off. Viewers can't tell the difference between a team shooting 25 or 35 threes while watching a game in real time.
The NBA really needs to work on injuries. Mainly have much better communication when a player is about to miss a game.
I don't think each player shooting one less 3 over the course of a game is going to increase interest.
I think the 3s make the the game too oriented towards the shot. I know that's stating the obvious but I think my intent is to say that it's easier to get points via the 3 than it is via a 2. It's not really a high risk high reward type of thing, which I think it should be and what it was meant(?) to be or at least it was executed in that way before 2010. Introducing hand checking would perhaps be one way to force you to work really hard to get a 3 off or at least be a really good shooter. If you ever have to shoot a mid or long 2 because the three is too difficult to pull off without star players or star execution, that's the right balance.
Maybe an analog would be that if anyone could complete 40 yard bombs down the field, virtually any qb/coach/WR combination, in which the expected value of doing so is better than shorter 10 yard routes, we would see a lot more bombs attempted. Maybe this would be exciting at first, but if you start seeing the slow TE get open down the field, maybe you think it's gone too far.
As I think about this, I remember the 5 yard contact rule for receivers in the NFL and wonder what if you disallowed all contact ever.
I know these were Quinn's words and not yours, Ethan, but I continue to be angry/heartsick at the propensity of contemporary basketball writers to discuss the Pistons' championships as being won through slogging defense. No! The Bad Boy Pistons played good defense for their day, but their day was still the late 80s/early 90s, and the games they played in the NBA Finals almost always had at least one, and often both, teams scoring more than 100. It was the 90s Knicks that played unwatchable, thuggish basketball, not the Pistons, dammit!
It's a fair question which iteration of the Pistons was being referenced, but I tend to think that people talking about the Pistons in connection with defensive basketball are referring to the Bad Boys rather than the Ben/Rasheed Wallace teams.
You're just watching math, which is objectively boring. Watching guys stand around and hoping to hit 34%. Nobody wants to watch Anthony Edwards, a great athlete, play like Dell Curry.
Somewhat off topic, but in the genre. RE: getting the players to try for the allstar game.
Why not scrap the game all together add a couple more players and make 64 player 1on1 tournament. No way the players don't go all out to win that. And I find the idea of watching all the mis-match battles 100x more intriguing than the current.... whatever it is.
You’ve been beating this drum for a bit now and I am open to the idea it would be a good change.
Here’s my concern / question. Is it too late?
The rule changed in 2004, when Anthony Edwards was roughly 3 years old. Cooler Flagg would not be born for another 2 years. Most current players have no real memory of the game before this rule change.
Is it going to take too long for players to adapt to the rules and for the game to settle into a place where it is an improved viewing experience? Yes we have the runway of the long tv deal, but that deal does require espn to stay in business. And that largely requires fans to keep watching and even increase in numbers.
If the rule change will improve the game, it should happen regardless. But for the idea of “saving” the nba, I wonder if more radical and urgent reforms need to happen? Or am I overestimated how long it would take players to adapt to the rule changes?
Both things can be true. It can be “better” but less people want to watch it. I have a 22 year old son who loves hoops, plays 3-4x a week and is pretty good. He doesn’t really care about the NBA till the conference finals in the playoffs at best. Unless Amazon figures out effective targeted ads during games, this may be the last big contract. Btw, I’ve been an NBA fan for 50ish years.
Isn't the most obvious solution to just copy a bunch of the rules from the more aesthetically pleasing euro league? Including making the 3-point line shorter, not longer.
Nope. This is all wrong and will not help. Especially when this would end the career of curry and Lillard, etc.
The answer is to completely eliminate flopping. What this would result in is teams unable to put smaller players in at the 5. We saw this the other day when Draymond Green was able to “play defense“ versus Zach Edey. This particular group of referees did not bail out green every possession and Zach feasted. Extrapolate that through the entire league and you would infuse a whole bunch of huge guys back in the game. Able to root down towards the basket. Able to get a million offensive rebounds. Thus offsetting The amount of threes taken. Allow a 7 foot one guy to absolutely destroy the 6,8” guy trying to defend him with flopping. This is the only fix.
If you dropped the 1999 Knicks in 2025 they would be neutered because of flopping.
I don't think this would affect Curry that much. Maybe I'm a homer, but I think he gets physically manhandled quite a bit. Does this mean he couldn't shoot the same volume of 3's or maybe he'd have to go father back to create more space, probably. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I like this take and the commenter who recently advocated for eliminating the euro step. The author the piece from CBS seems to hate post play, mid range play, low scoring, and upsetting anything including the "lost revenue" from expanding the court? He also doesnt really believe the NBA has a problem. I do apprecriate the piece as a form of published brainstorming but the NBA may need to act with more of a sense of urgency than his piece carries.
My hot take is I don't believe current 3 point volume is a turn off. Viewers can't tell the difference between a team shooting 25 or 35 threes while watching a game in real time.
The NBA really needs to work on injuries. Mainly have much better communication when a player is about to miss a game.
I don't think each player shooting one less 3 over the course of a game is going to increase interest.
I think the 3s make the the game too oriented towards the shot. I know that's stating the obvious but I think my intent is to say that it's easier to get points via the 3 than it is via a 2. It's not really a high risk high reward type of thing, which I think it should be and what it was meant(?) to be or at least it was executed in that way before 2010. Introducing hand checking would perhaps be one way to force you to work really hard to get a 3 off or at least be a really good shooter. If you ever have to shoot a mid or long 2 because the three is too difficult to pull off without star players or star execution, that's the right balance.
Maybe an analog would be that if anyone could complete 40 yard bombs down the field, virtually any qb/coach/WR combination, in which the expected value of doing so is better than shorter 10 yard routes, we would see a lot more bombs attempted. Maybe this would be exciting at first, but if you start seeing the slow TE get open down the field, maybe you think it's gone too far.
As I think about this, I remember the 5 yard contact rule for receivers in the NFL and wonder what if you disallowed all contact ever.
I know these were Quinn's words and not yours, Ethan, but I continue to be angry/heartsick at the propensity of contemporary basketball writers to discuss the Pistons' championships as being won through slogging defense. No! The Bad Boy Pistons played good defense for their day, but their day was still the late 80s/early 90s, and the games they played in the NBA Finals almost always had at least one, and often both, teams scoring more than 100. It was the 90s Knicks that played unwatchable, thuggish basketball, not the Pistons, dammit!
I don't think the article mentions the Bad Boys Pistons
It's a fair question which iteration of the Pistons was being referenced, but I tend to think that people talking about the Pistons in connection with defensive basketball are referring to the Bad Boys rather than the Ben/Rasheed Wallace teams.
You’re totally right. And most NBA media writers always throw a fit about the 2004 Pistons and Pacers. I remember those being freaking fantastic.
And it’s because Jermaine O’Neill and the Wallaces and Greg Foster were NOT flopping. It was a legitimate battle!
Jeff*
You're just watching math, which is objectively boring. Watching guys stand around and hoping to hit 34%. Nobody wants to watch Anthony Edwards, a great athlete, play like Dell Curry.
I think the NBA has never been better and needs to change nothing.
Somewhat off topic, but in the genre. RE: getting the players to try for the allstar game.
Why not scrap the game all together add a couple more players and make 64 player 1on1 tournament. No way the players don't go all out to win that. And I find the idea of watching all the mis-match battles 100x more intriguing than the current.... whatever it is.
Why is this not done already?
Can you get Nate Duncan and Freddie on the pod to have a steel man cage fight over whether 3s are good or bad?
You’ve been beating this drum for a bit now and I am open to the idea it would be a good change.
Here’s my concern / question. Is it too late?
The rule changed in 2004, when Anthony Edwards was roughly 3 years old. Cooler Flagg would not be born for another 2 years. Most current players have no real memory of the game before this rule change.
Is it going to take too long for players to adapt to the rules and for the game to settle into a place where it is an improved viewing experience? Yes we have the runway of the long tv deal, but that deal does require espn to stay in business. And that largely requires fans to keep watching and even increase in numbers.
If the rule change will improve the game, it should happen regardless. But for the idea of “saving” the nba, I wonder if more radical and urgent reforms need to happen? Or am I overestimated how long it would take players to adapt to the rule changes?
I guess Ethan's ready for the inevitable "did he step on the line before they checked him" video review.
A horrible thought came to mind:
What if James Harden, or someone like him, figured out a way to exploit this in a "step forward" type move to bait fouls by suddenly crossing the line
Keith Van Horn would avg 30/game in today’s nba
Christian Laettner would be insane in today's NBA
Both things can be true. It can be “better” but less people want to watch it. I have a 22 year old son who loves hoops, plays 3-4x a week and is pretty good. He doesn’t really care about the NBA till the conference finals in the playoffs at best. Unless Amazon figures out effective targeted ads during games, this may be the last big contract. Btw, I’ve been an NBA fan for 50ish years.
Isn't the most obvious solution to just copy a bunch of the rules from the more aesthetically pleasing euro league? Including making the 3-point line shorter, not longer.