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Have you watched pro basketball since the NBA legalized zone defense in 2001? Most of the shots taken in games these days are 3 pointers. The days of Dikembe Mu

Have you watched pro basketball since the NBA legalized zone defense in 2001? Most of the shots taken in games these days are 3 pointers. The days of Dikembe Mutumbo (or even Shaq) hanging out in the paint and doing tiptoe dunks ended about 8 years ago. Even 7 foot guys like Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett take 40% or more of their shots from 3 point territory. Wallace shoots 35% on three pointers (30% is the "he's a good three point shooter" threshold). The real three point shooters make half of their shots... a feat of accuracy which is really fucking hard, even more so considering they also have to get to the shot and deal with defense. There is no question most basketball players are genetic freaks but anyone playing in the NBA these days is also scarily accurate. I hate to agree that I now find the NBA kinda boring... but it's not because it's a circus act (circuses are pretty interesting, actually.) The NBA is boring because almost every player is now so superhumanly good that it's hard to imagine how difficult what they are doing really is.

BRadmin 16y ago
I like what you're saying but there's some pretty gross hyperbole going on here. You cite zone defense as though it's drastically changed the NBA - but it's rarely deployed. You say most shots taken in games are three pointers, but they actually make up 18-22% (over the last decade) of them. And you say KG and Rasheed take over 40% of their shots from three. Kevin Garnett takes 3.3% of his shots from downtown. For Rasheed it's just under 25%. Both are career stats....
- starkfist 16y ago
  Well it's the internet, i reserve the right to hyperbolize. I guess i was pretty far wrong about KG though... my bad. But, threes are up like 40% over the past 10 years. Over the past 5 years the games have been more shooting oriented than ever before. The WSJ had an article a while back suggesting that the real reason is because the league hasn't been doing that great financially, and it's cheaper for teams to get a set of 3 point shooters vs. one LeBron or KG.

BRadmin 16y ago

I like what you're saying but there's some pretty gross hyperbole going on here. You cite zone defense as though it's drastically changed the NBA - but it's rarely deployed. You say most shots taken in games are three pointers, but they actually make up 18-22% (over the last decade) of them. And you say KG and Rasheed take over 40% of their shots from three. Kevin Garnett takes 3.3% of his shots from downtown. For Rasheed it's just under 25%. Both are career stats....

starkfist 16y ago
Well it's the internet, i reserve the right to hyperbolize. I guess i was pretty far wrong about KG though... my bad. But, threes are up like 40% over the past 10 years. Over the past 5 years the games have been more shooting oriented than ever before. The WSJ had an article a while back suggesting that the real reason is because the league hasn't been doing that great financially, and it's cheaper for teams to get a set of 3 point shooters vs. one LeBron or KG.