The NBA’s love affair with the three pointer: thrilling fans, frustrating big men
A brief history of the long shot
by Isaac Eger
The big men of the NBA are feeling threatened, and they’re not keeping quiet about it. The rise of the three-point shot has transformed basketball, and the canonization of Stephen Curry, its foremost practitioner, has some retired players in the six-five-and-over crowd whining about the state of the game.
Charles Barkley called the modern NBA “watered down” and “the worst I’ve seen it.” Tracy McGrady, who stands six-foot-eight, echoed the sentiment, and wondered if Curry would have won his MVP title so handily in previous eras. Walt Frazier pondered aloud, “If there was no three-ball shot, would we be talking about the greatness of Curry today?” Hall-of-famer Oscar Roberston said three-pointers are viable only because coaches don’t “understand the game of basketball…They don’t know anything about defenses.”
This revanchist moaning around three-pointers is actually nothing new. The shot has been controversial since its inception five decades ago. And it’s taken time for coaches and players to understand the tactical and numerical value of going long.
The first official three-point line in professional basketball was drawn in 1961 by the American Basketball League, a then-rival to the NBA. The ABL’s commissioner, Abe Saperstein, drew the line about 25 feet out — about two feet further than it is today — and called it the “home run” shot. The ABL folded after a season and half, and it wasn’t until six years later that another NBA competitor, the American Basketball Association, also adopted the three-pointer.
The ABA distinguished itself from its competitor by emphasizing an flashy, offense-heavy style of play. It was the first to host the dunk contest and it implemented the three-point line for its inaugural season in 1967. Commissioner George Mikan saw the three-point line as an opportunity to “give the smaller player a chance to score and open up the defense” which would “make the game more enjoyable to fans.” In spite of the ABA’s stylistic prescience, the league failed to secure a national television contract and was forced to merge with the more business-savvy NBA in 1976.
It wasn’t until the 1979–80 season that the NBA adopted the three-point line—and many of the league’s old guard did not appreciate the addition. Boston Celtics president and coaching legend Red Auerbach dismissed the three-pointer as a gimmick meant to combat bad television ratings. “We don’t need it,” he complained to The New York Times, “I say leave our game alone.” Phoenix Suns coach John MacLeod, leveling criticism of the shot that is still heard today, said “I’m not going to set up plays for guys to bomb from 23 feet. I think that’s very boring basketball.”
Despite the original skepticism, the shot’s usage has increased every year since its implementation (except for the 1994–97 seasons when the line was shortened in hopes of increasing scoring). What changed the appreciation of the three-pointer in basketball was the rise of Sabermetrics in baseball — the quantitative analysis of statistics glamorized by the best-selling book Moneyball.
NBA coaches, owners, and general managers began to believe that a mathematical approach to basketball might also guarantee victory. Teams started to focus on “points per possession” in their analyses. The crux of the logic being that because basketball alternates possessions, in any given game each team should have roughly the same number of possessions. Since three-point shots are inherently worth 50 percent more than their two-point counterparts, they’re a wise bet.
This new emphasis on outside shooting has led to more space on the the basketball court, ushering in a new era where the point guard position is more important than it’s ever been. Players like Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, and Curry now rule the league. This year, Curry set an NBA record with 402 threes. (The second place finisher, Curry’s teammate Klay Thompson, came in with 276.)
Teams are shooting more threes than ever, and making them. While two-point shot percentage plateaued decades ago at around 49 percent, three-point shooting has increased to a league average of 35 percent, up from 28 percent during the shots inaugural year.
This success has led some to believe the shot should be made more difficult. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks the three-point line should be moved back. Others believe that the league should draw another line behind the three-point arc for a four-point shot.
In which case, are you ready for final scores in the 148–162 range?
