I’ve been saying this for years: today’s game of basketball is not what basketball used to be. Here is a shot chart comparison beautifully done by Kirk Goldsberry of ESPN, showing the difference in shot selection in the NBA in 2001-02 and in 2019-20. Each dot represents one of the 200 most common shot locations for each of those two years. This season the 2-point shot OUTSIDE the 3” lane is no more! So, they have a game (not only in the NBA, by the way, but also at the NCAA, FIBA and IHSA levels) but it is not the well-balanced game it used to be. Teams are giving up over 50% of the shooting area in their search for the ‘three.’
So, no more baseline drives, no more wedge moves, no more spin moves, no more bank shots, no more hook shots, no more jump hooks, no more pickup jump shots off the dribble. They have a new sport. More on that later. This is enough for now.
The game used to be this way and it was the most beautiful game in the world. Attendance is down in many places. I know people who say they don’t enjoy watching the game as they used to, that it’s boring, all threes and pick and rolls. Why did they ever mess with the beautiful game they had? Why don’t they go back to that game?
After my two charts, stolen from Kirk Goldsberry of ESPN, which showed how the NBA is now totally oriented toward the 3-point shot, at the expense of the pickup jump shot, the ‘middle’ game and the baseline game, I will also steal a line from one of my readers, who said “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” No way I could have that.
1. Pick & Roll. Solution: Bring back the rule (and the interpretation of that rule), in force up until about 1970 or so, which said the man setting the screen (a) could not make contact with the man being screened and (b) the man setting the screen had to plant that screen roughly one step or one arm’s length from the man being screened. That would throw a crimp into the Pick & Roll and force teams to get back to other options, to moving the ball, to more varied offenses, to a more beautiful game. It used to be that way.
2. 3-point shot. What? They will never abolish the 3-point shot? Too bad. But, there are ways around all this. One is to eliminate the ‘channel’ down the sidelines. That would mean any sideline shot would be a 2-point shot. You could do this by moving the arc back even farther from the basket. The lines of the arc would intersect with the sideline earlier and the only 3-point shot would be a shot from the back court. So, a longer shot and no sideline shot. Let them chew on that for a while.
The game used to be this way and it was the most beautiful game in the world. Attendance is down in many places. I know people who say they don’t enjoy watching the game as they used to, that it’s boring, all threes and pick and rolls. Why did they ever mess with the beautiful game they had? Why don’t they go back to that game?
Photo: Printscreen