[gfunk911]

I love the modern game. I just think the pendulum has swung a tiny bit too far toward 3s in the past 3-4 years, that's all. Just a nudge in the other direction.

My ideal would be to try changing 2s and 3s to 3s and 4s. But that will never happen.

[pgm8705]

I think it would be enough to simply move the 3 point line back a couple feet AND have it follow its natural arc out of bounds, thus eliminating the shorter and easier corner 3 shot.

[kenjackson]

I’d rather defenses covered it better to give up more 2s in the paint. If we make it too far out it no longer spaces the floor and then we’re back to a game in the paint.

[darkerside]

This is my preferred answer. Bring back physicality into the sport, especially on defense. There are moving screens on every play, and yet a defender can stand and get jumped into resulting in free throws.

[bdangubic]

couple of feet is not enough. the line needs to move far enough such that vast majority of the players (more than 95%) shoot less than 30% from there. so probably 8 to 10 feet back. absolutely should happen but they will likely do something awesome like shortening quarters to 10 minutes

[idlewords]

Just fill the ball with water.

[mooreds]

What about tying 2 sets of players (one pair on each team) feet together, potato sack relay style?

[bdangubic]

curry and bol bol are two good candidates. in today’s nba you can’t tell difference between them on the court except for several feet of height difference. but practically same player as they shoot about the same shots

[pandemic_region]

But not fully otherwise it becomes easy again.

[aaplok]

I don't watch basketball, so I am speculating, but isn't this a case where defence hasn't yet adapted to the new attacking strategies? Wouldn't you expect that in a few years teams will be better at defending against 3s, reducing their expected value and therefore swinging the pendulum back towards more 2s?

The Nash equilibrium should be that the expected values of 2s and 3s are equal. If you're off, you would expect a trend toward that equilibrium, possibly with some overcorrection.

[hardwaregeek]

Ironically Steve Nash didn't shoot enough 3s, so his Nash equilibrium was pretty off.

In all seriousness, yes, there's a lot more to modern basketball than just "take more 3s". It's more like "try to get dunks and layups, but if that doesn't work get 3s, but also mid range is still valuable if it softens up defense". And defenses have learned to scramble and switch to cover a lot of 3 pointers, but that can still be exploited with cross court passing and switch hunting. Check out some cool plays here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo-V_ujmMFo

[darkerside]

This is a great question from a novice basketball watcher. What's with the downvotes?

[taurknaut]

> But that will never happen.

Yes, it will. However it will take depressed viewership to realize.

[bilbo0s]

So, yeah. Never.

If the answer is “they have to make less money”, it’s just very unlikely to happen. Most sports, but especially the global behemoths that are basketball and football (soccer), have made more money over time just because of population.

[twolf910616]

agree it'll never happen, but very cool idea.