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Thinking Basketball is one of my favorite resources for basketball analysis. He recently made a video debunking myths about the modern game [1]. While yes, ther

Thinking Basketball is one of my favorite resources for basketball analysis. He recently made a video debunking myths about the modern game [1]. While yes, there’s far more analytics and knowledge in the game, it hasn’t lead to monotony or poor quality. It’s instead resulted in a Cambrian explosion of tactics, counter tactics, and really diverse team strategies. But the commentary and analysis in mainstream basketball hasn’t caught up, so your average viewer is watching a chess match but not even understanding the basic moves. Which leads to frustration and confusion. [1]: https://youtu.be/fp4but75EjY?si=YdOqZZ5-sH6lQHd9 https://youtu.be/fp4but75EjY?si=YdOqZZ5-sH6lQHd9

gfunk911 2y ago
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.
- twolf910616 2y ago
  agree it'll never happen, but very cool idea.
- pgm8705 2y ago
  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.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      Just fill the ball with water.
      - pandemic_region 2y ago
        But not fully otherwise it becomes easy again.
      - mooreds 2y ago
        What about tying 2 sets of players (one pair on each team) feet together, potato sack relay style?
        bdangubic 2y ago
        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
  - kenjackson 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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.
- taurknaut 2y ago
  > But that will never happen. Yes, it will. However it will take depressed viewership to realize.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    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.
- aaplok 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo-V_ujmMFo
  - darkerside 2y ago
    This is a great question from a novice basketball watcher. What's with the downvotes?
bongodongobob 2y ago
Are you talking about NBA basketball? Golf is more exciting.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  I am about as crazy of an nba fan as they come - or at least I used to be. I was averaging 80-90 games per year before, now I watch maybe 20 max, mostly in the playoffs. Surely there are people that prefer today's nba, I am not one of them. I think chucking 3's is the least interesting part of the game and it is so overwhelming in today's game that I lost interest in watching
lapcat 2y ago
> your average viewer is watching a chess match but not even understanding the basic moves Your average viewer isn't tuning in to watch a chess match. You'll notice that professional chess doesn't have the same viewership as basketball. Regardless of the mathematical strategies, it sucks to watch a bunch of three pointers getting missed. The NBA team average is 36% on 38 attempts per game. Thus, in an average game, there are 76 three-point attempts and 49 misses. The worst is when they take and miss a three-pointer early in the shot clock, maybe even from the logo. Shoot, clunk, possession over, yawn. Draymond Green just said that the modern game is rarely a chess match. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43860581/no-substance https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43860581/no-substance > Green talked about a recent Warriors game against the Los Angeles Lakers and how it was "refreshing" to go against a thinker like LeBron James, who is notorious for finding weaknesses and exploiting them. > "Every possession is some type of chess move," Green said. "You don't get that today in the NBA, often. ... You don't just get that on a regular basis. It's just who can run faster, who can hit more 3s. It's no substance. I think it's very boring."
- hardwaregeek 2y ago
  So I agree that more complexity is not better and there’s a real risk of alienating fans with complicated schemes. But chess has made real inroads by providing good commentators and analysis. You can’t make teams play dumber but you can teach fans to be smarter. As for missing, the video I linked debunks that. 3 pointers are replacing long 2 pointers which also had a low percentage. And in turn, the game has become less crowded and more spread out, leading to a higher percentage on dunks and layups. The pace has also dramatically increased, leading to more swings in scoring, which is pretty exciting.
  - kenjackson 2y ago
    Thinking Basketball is great. The people who complain about the 3s in basketball probably didn’t watch the NBA in the older days. Horrible defense and far less skill — and that’s the era I grew up and loved. I have two major complaints about the game nowadays: (1) intentional fouling to get an advantage. It’s the only major sport where fouling can often work to your advantage. (2) The block call is so inconsistent it might as well be a coin flip.
bballfan133 2y ago
I really dislike this talking point. 1) That people who don't enjoy what they see are just unsophisticated. 2) That today's basketball is better because players have more skill and plays are more complex. I don't think that's the point at all. I've personally found it hard to sit through games this season - it feels like there isn't much at stake. What happens in the first quarter is a mere blip. And even in the fourth, it seems like just which shots happen to go in by chance. I feel like the Thinking Basketball approach might be exactly what's unenjoyable - devaluing individual moments for the sake of theory.
- majormajor 2y ago
  "The regular season is too long" and "the first quarter doesn't matter" (make that anything before the last 5 minutes, really) are practically ancient complaints at this point. Decades long. "Too many threes" is a more novel complaint but one that should self-correct in a couple of ways: * the passing/screens/movement that leads to a good look at a three is often pretty fun * taking bad threes has a lot less mathematical advantage and as defenses get better at shutting down the schemes for the good ones, the best teams will adjust what other looks they try to generate I would also be fine with moving the line back, or getting rid of the corner three entirely. The fixed-distance shot is an easier skill than being able to hit jumpers from various distances so as long as its easy-enough then you're never gonna see players who don't otherwise have much offensive game train themselves to be 3pt specialists.
- remixff2400 2y ago
  1. <- I think this is a good thing to focus on, and even lightly touched on in the video. The idea should be that you don't _need_ to be sophisticated to enjoy the sport. The NFL does well in this regard because it's pretty easy to understand that moving the ball forward is good, losing the ball is bad. Where basketball misses there is that the "get the ball in the hoop" portion of that is _really_ boring now. I'd wager that people don't want to be concerned with some 3rd man setting a screen on the other side of the court allowing some 2nd man to set up behind a pick from a 4th man to get passed the ball from the 1st man to shoot a three... and then clank it off the rim. Then, rinse and repeat on both ends. The end result is that the "get the ball in the hoop" part just feels like a back-and-forth 3-point shootaround, even though the actual sequence is far more complex.
ecocentrik 2y ago
Thinking Basketball needs a prime time spot for his analysis. Very good stuff.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
I love thinking basketball but think he completely missed the point here. An apt quote is when he's talking about how much strategy the game has and says "its like high speed chess." The problem is that people dont want to watch high speed chess. The NBAs job is to be as entertaining as possible, not just as strategic as possible. Like it or not iso plays are entertaining even if theyre "bad basketball" in terms of winning. He says the only thing thats changed is that people take less mid range shots and more 3s as if thats a good thing but the league has replaced entertaining sets where you have to actually beat your defender with shooting contests(even if you have to run around a lot or step back to get the shot off) and the product has suffered because of it. I think defense is a lot more interesting now and the media has done a horrible job capitalizing on that but end of the day people care more about offense.

gfunk911 2y ago

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.

twolf910616 2y ago
agree it'll never happen, but very cool idea.
pgm8705 2y ago
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.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    Just fill the ball with water.
    - pandemic_region 2y ago
      But not fully otherwise it becomes easy again.
    - mooreds 2y ago
      What about tying 2 sets of players (one pair on each team) feet together, potato sack relay style?
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        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
- kenjackson 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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.
taurknaut 2y ago
> But that will never happen. Yes, it will. However it will take depressed viewership to realize.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  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.
aaplok 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo-V_ujmMFo
- darkerside 2y ago
  This is a great question from a novice basketball watcher. What's with the downvotes?

bongodongobob 2y ago

Are you talking about NBA basketball? Golf is more exciting.

bdangubic 2y ago
I am about as crazy of an nba fan as they come - or at least I used to be. I was averaging 80-90 games per year before, now I watch maybe 20 max, mostly in the playoffs. Surely there are people that prefer today's nba, I am not one of them. I think chucking 3's is the least interesting part of the game and it is so overwhelming in today's game that I lost interest in watching

lapcat 2y ago

> your average viewer is watching a chess match but not even understanding the basic moves Your average viewer isn't tuning in to watch a chess match. You'll notice that professional chess doesn't have the same viewership as basketball. Regardless of the mathematical strategies, it sucks to watch a bunch of three pointers getting missed. The NBA team average is 36% on 38 attempts per game. Thus, in an average game, there are 76 three-point attempts and 49 misses. The worst is when they take and miss a three-pointer early in the shot clock, maybe even from the logo. Shoot, clunk, possession over, yawn. Draymond Green just said that the modern game is rarely a chess match. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43860581/no-substance https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43860581/no-substance > Green talked about a recent Warriors game against the Los Angeles Lakers and how it was "refreshing" to go against a thinker like LeBron James, who is notorious for finding weaknesses and exploiting them. > "Every possession is some type of chess move," Green said. "You don't get that today in the NBA, often. ... You don't just get that on a regular basis. It's just who can run faster, who can hit more 3s. It's no substance. I think it's very boring."

hardwaregeek 2y ago
So I agree that more complexity is not better and there’s a real risk of alienating fans with complicated schemes. But chess has made real inroads by providing good commentators and analysis. You can’t make teams play dumber but you can teach fans to be smarter. As for missing, the video I linked debunks that. 3 pointers are replacing long 2 pointers which also had a low percentage. And in turn, the game has become less crowded and more spread out, leading to a higher percentage on dunks and layups. The pace has also dramatically increased, leading to more swings in scoring, which is pretty exciting.
- kenjackson 2y ago
  Thinking Basketball is great. The people who complain about the 3s in basketball probably didn’t watch the NBA in the older days. Horrible defense and far less skill — and that’s the era I grew up and loved. I have two major complaints about the game nowadays: (1) intentional fouling to get an advantage. It’s the only major sport where fouling can often work to your advantage. (2) The block call is so inconsistent it might as well be a coin flip.

bballfan133 2y ago

I really dislike this talking point. 1) That people who don't enjoy what they see are just unsophisticated. 2) That today's basketball is better because players have more skill and plays are more complex. I don't think that's the point at all. I've personally found it hard to sit through games this season - it feels like there isn't much at stake. What happens in the first quarter is a mere blip. And even in the fourth, it seems like just which shots happen to go in by chance. I feel like the Thinking Basketball approach might be exactly what's unenjoyable - devaluing individual moments for the sake of theory.

majormajor 2y ago
"The regular season is too long" and "the first quarter doesn't matter" (make that anything before the last 5 minutes, really) are practically ancient complaints at this point. Decades long. "Too many threes" is a more novel complaint but one that should self-correct in a couple of ways: * the passing/screens/movement that leads to a good look at a three is often pretty fun * taking bad threes has a lot less mathematical advantage and as defenses get better at shutting down the schemes for the good ones, the best teams will adjust what other looks they try to generate I would also be fine with moving the line back, or getting rid of the corner three entirely. The fixed-distance shot is an easier skill than being able to hit jumpers from various distances so as long as its easy-enough then you're never gonna see players who don't otherwise have much offensive game train themselves to be 3pt specialists.
remixff2400 2y ago
1. <- I think this is a good thing to focus on, and even lightly touched on in the video. The idea should be that you don't _need_ to be sophisticated to enjoy the sport. The NFL does well in this regard because it's pretty easy to understand that moving the ball forward is good, losing the ball is bad. Where basketball misses there is that the "get the ball in the hoop" portion of that is _really_ boring now. I'd wager that people don't want to be concerned with some 3rd man setting a screen on the other side of the court allowing some 2nd man to set up behind a pick from a 4th man to get passed the ball from the 1st man to shoot a three... and then clank it off the rim. Then, rinse and repeat on both ends. The end result is that the "get the ball in the hoop" part just feels like a back-and-forth 3-point shootaround, even though the actual sequence is far more complex.

ecocentrik 2y ago

Thinking Basketball needs a prime time spot for his analysis. Very good stuff.

HDThoreaun 2y ago

I love thinking basketball but think he completely missed the point here. An apt quote is when he's talking about how much strategy the game has and says "its like high speed chess." The problem is that people dont want to watch high speed chess. The NBAs job is to be as entertaining as possible, not just as strategic as possible. Like it or not iso plays are entertaining even if theyre "bad basketball" in terms of winning. He says the only thing thats changed is that people take less mid range shots and more 3s as if thats a good thing but the league has replaced entertaining sets where you have to actually beat your defender with shooting contests(even if you have to run around a lot or step back to get the shot off) and the product has suffered because of it. I think defense is a lot more interesting now and the media has done a horrible job capitalizing on that but end of the day people care more about offense.