stephen curry is certainly awe-inspiring in his ability to hit so many three's in the way that he does, but i have to agree with gregg popovich about the state of the professional version of this sport; the three-point shot has turned the nba into a game of horse, a glorified series of circus shots that make it rather easy for a team to run up the score without ever having to actually commit to executing the tenets of the sport with the kind of proficiency typically required of professionals...
I wanted to high five Coach Pop when I heard his comments. I couldn't agree more. No hating on the W's, because I'd certainly be rooting hard for the Kings and loving every minute of it if they were winning games in the same manner -- however, I'd still feel that it was hurting the game.
The whole point of basketball is to work together, as a team, to get the easiest and highest percentage shot as close to the hoop as possible. I don't really understand the concept of rewarding a team (an extra point) for being lazy and settling for lower percentage shots further from the basket. Just because a 25-foot shot is harder to convert than a 15-foot shot doesn't mean it should be worth more -- especially when you can get an uncontested 25-footer practically any time you want versus not being able to get an uncontested 15-footer near as often. In an odd way, it kinda makes sense that you should award more points scoring it closer to the basket -- as those uncontested attempts are harder to come by.
Imagine in football if they made longer TD passes worth more points. For example, anything over 40 yards would score 8 points instead of 6. Suddenly you'd have teams trying to chuck it deep nearly every play. Would that make the game better?
Also, they don't award more points for longer field goal attempts even though it is much more difficult to kick a 60 yarder than it is a 30 yarder. If they did, we'd be seeing a ton more attempts once anyone got near midfield. Again, would that make the game better?
Back to Steph Curry, I get that he is a freak of nature and makes a high percentage of his 25-35 footers. But he'd shoot a much higher percentage from 10-20 feet than he ever could from those longer ranges. And teams used to work a lot harder for those shots than they do now. Yes, the Warriors do pass and move the ball exceptionally well -- for a modern era team that is. But they still design a lot of their plays to settle for 3's when they could easily work for higher percentage shots. And they do this because the rules reward offenses for settling for lower percentage shots.
To combat it, I think they should go back to the old defensive rules that don't allow teams to play zone or collapse on low post players as they can do now. If BIGS can get one-on-one matchups more often in the post (like they used to) and help defenders have further to travel to apply a double or triple team, then the 3 pt line is somewhat marginalized. Teams like the Warriors can shoot 45% from 3 pt range all they want. When the opponents dominant BIG man is converting 65-70% of his shots near the basket (and drawing fouls) because he's being guarded by a smaller player without immediate help, it would balance things out and likely tip the scales back the other direction.
