One of the defining talking points of the NBA season so far has been the pushback against the heavy usage of three-point shooting. Critics argue it takes away from the sport’s entertainment value and lessens the game’s dynamism. Take for example the Boston Celtics, who are currently averaging around 50 three-point attempts per game, positioning themselves to break the league’s record and becoming the first NBA team in history to attempt more 3s than 2s over the course of a season.
The conversation comes at a moment when the NBA is experiencing declining viewership. While excessive three-point shooting alone may not be to blame for this decline, it is a serious enough issue for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to take notice.
During a Wednesday appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Silver addressed the issue and admitted that the league is seriously considering changes. What exactly these changes are remains to be seen, as he admits moving back the 3-point line would be nothing more than a quick fix:
“I think we’ve just gotta be careful. The one thing we don’t want to do is, I don’t want to just kneejerk move the 3-point line. We’re sort of going through a process now, seeing how these players are adapting to the new rules, and figuring out what changes we should make. To be honest, I wish it was as simple as just moving the 3-point line back, because then we would just do it. Part of the concern from the basketball folks is that if you move the 3-point line back, you’ll end up just sort of clogging up the area under the basket, and that’s not such attractive basketball either.
I assure you, we are on it. I think it’s a very fixable issue. As stewards of the game, we’ll tweak it. We will correct those issues.”
At the same time, Silver says that the rise of dynamic big men doing things we’ve never seen before, such as Victor Webmanyama and Nikola Jokic, makes things a little more complicated.
“What do we do to change it? I agree to the extent that you start to see very similar offenses around the league. Teams have brands, teams have identities… so, I recognize that to the extent that offenses start to look very similar, we lose that.“
While the solution the NBA plans on implementing will surely take time, the league remains very clued-in to what the fans are saying about the state of the game.
