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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

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.
- pepa65 2y ago
  Completely agree, but I would add the incessant need for counting, 3 seconds, 8 seconds, 24 seconds. But the current fouling situation really needs to be fixed urgently.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  besides 7-footers chucking 3’s what “skills” do these new nba players have? there are maybe 10 that have any skills, the rest can shoot and that’s about fucking it. 90% of today’s players would play in D league two decades ago
  - abenga 2y ago
    > two decades ago Are you talking about the age when teams gave contracts to any random player 6'10 and above just to soak up fouls from Shaq?
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      as opposed to now when davis betrans is pushing close $100 million in earnings? :) don’t be funny
      - abenga 2y ago
        Bertans is a close to 8PPG, 40%3P shooter in his career. Sounds like a useful role player to me. Not everyone has to be Lebron James.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        if we paid $84m to role players NBA will need salary cap equal to US GDP :)
        abenga 2y ago
        Are you thinking the salary cap hasn't changed from the 90s? The MLE is 12.3m this year, and that is a high-end role player. If one plays at that level for 8 years, they make that amount you're complaining about. And the cap is expected to go up significantly over the next few years (would have gone up more drastically, but the KD to Warriors situation convinced teams to adopt smoothing). It is true that in general, super stars are underpaid, and role players are overpaid.
- ctchocula 2y ago
  > (1) intentional fouling to get an advantage. It’s the only major sport where fouling can often work to your advantage. nitpick: This happens in soccer as well. Oftentimes it's late in the game and you see the opponent has a counterattack that has a high probability of scoring. In that case, it's better for you to tactically foul them by taking them down before they reach your box and take the yellow card.
  - soneca 2y ago
    Came here to say this. It doesn’t have to be late in the game. The whole time tactical fouls is a valuable tool for defense. You try to make it non-violent enough and, when it’s a counterattack, early enough so the referee might not interpret as a foul to prevent a counterattack, so you don’t get a yellow card. Also, exchanging a certain goal for a penalty+red card is a very common defense tactic. Check Uruguay vs Ghana, World Cup 2010.
- naet 2y ago
  The end of a basketball game feels almost completely unwatchable for me when they devolve into constant fouling, stopping the game every couple of seconds. There are possessions where the defense has the sole objective of ignoring everything other than fouling as fast as possible, which feels boring and can stretch 30 seconds of in game clock time to 5+ minutes of back to back stoppage. I get that it might be the mathematical best play because it forces the winning team to take free throws and then turn the ball over without taking any clock time, but they could architect the rules to avoid it. I totally agree with the block call being a coin flip.... I'd extend it to almost every other call. NBA reffing seems like it absolutely sucks for such a large scale professional league. Basketball is a fast paced game so I know they can't catch everything, but when you're watching on TV you see so many things that are so inconsistently called. Those calls end up changing the outcome of the game when one team has 20 more ft chances than the other.
- paganel 2y ago
  The defense was much more on point back in the ‘90s because the defenders were allowed to be more physical without fouls getting called left and right. Nowadays it’s all a travesty, you’ve got scoresheets like 145-135 and nobody blinks an eye about it.
- gordonyx 2y ago
  Horrible defense? You're kidding, right? Check out the mid-80's - 90's - early 2000's Bulls, Knicks, Celtics, 76'ers, and Pistons, or basically any team east of the Mississippi. The 95-96 Bulls were the best defensive team in NBA history. No one's played defense in the NBA for 20 years at least. And yeah, the 3 has completely changed the game into something more resembling NBA 2K1, which is exactly what the league wants.
lapcat 2y ago
> As for missing, the video I linked debunks that. 3 pointers are replacing long 2 pointers which also had a low percentage. I'd much rather watch NBA players miss 3's than watch a 23 minute YouTube video of someone talking about missing 3's. ;-) But the NBA FG% in 2025 is 46.5%, while it was 49.1% in 1985, so I'm skeptical that 3 pointers are simply replacing long 2 pointers with equal percentages. Obviously the % would go down the farther you get from the basket. > And in turn, the game has become less crowded and more spread out, leading to a higher percentage on dunks and layups Crowding is not necessarily bad. A contested shot is interesting; an uncontested shot, not so much. Even uncontested dunks are less interesting than contested dunks.
- hardwaregeek 2y ago
  That's not a huge difference. 3% is like an average of 3 extra misses, which is probably not even that noticeable with variance. 3 pointers are not replacing 2 pointers with equal percentages, but they are creating opportunities for higher percentage 2 pointers. > Crowding is not necessarily bad. A contested shot is interesting; an uncontested shot, not so much. Even uncontested dunks are less interesting than contested dunks. That's because you're thinking of a really cool dunk, not a big man backing down his man for like 20 seconds and throwing up a clanker that gets rebounded into another 20 second post possession. Realistically that's what a lot of offense was like back in the day. There's just selective nostalgia for the really cool plays.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > That's not a huge difference. 3% is like an average of 3 extra misses More like 5 extra misses per game. And we're getting more uncontested misses today. > a big man backing down his man for like 20 seconds and throwing up a clanker that gets rebounded into another 20 second post possession. Realistically that's what a lot of offense was like back in the day. But this clearly wasn't happening 64% of the time. The irony is that contemporary players are better shooters. Yet their overall shooting % is lower, because they're consistently taking longer, harder shots.
    - 2y ago

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.

pepa65 2y ago
Completely agree, but I would add the incessant need for counting, 3 seconds, 8 seconds, 24 seconds. But the current fouling situation really needs to be fixed urgently.
bdangubic 2y ago
besides 7-footers chucking 3’s what “skills” do these new nba players have? there are maybe 10 that have any skills, the rest can shoot and that’s about fucking it. 90% of today’s players would play in D league two decades ago
- abenga 2y ago
  > two decades ago Are you talking about the age when teams gave contracts to any random player 6'10 and above just to soak up fouls from Shaq?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    as opposed to now when davis betrans is pushing close $100 million in earnings? :) don’t be funny
    - abenga 2y ago
      Bertans is a close to 8PPG, 40%3P shooter in his career. Sounds like a useful role player to me. Not everyone has to be Lebron James.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        if we paid $84m to role players NBA will need salary cap equal to US GDP :)
        abenga 2y ago
        Are you thinking the salary cap hasn't changed from the 90s? The MLE is 12.3m this year, and that is a high-end role player. If one plays at that level for 8 years, they make that amount you're complaining about. And the cap is expected to go up significantly over the next few years (would have gone up more drastically, but the KD to Warriors situation convinced teams to adopt smoothing). It is true that in general, super stars are underpaid, and role players are overpaid.
ctchocula 2y ago
> (1) intentional fouling to get an advantage. It’s the only major sport where fouling can often work to your advantage. nitpick: This happens in soccer as well. Oftentimes it's late in the game and you see the opponent has a counterattack that has a high probability of scoring. In that case, it's better for you to tactically foul them by taking them down before they reach your box and take the yellow card.
- soneca 2y ago
  Came here to say this. It doesn’t have to be late in the game. The whole time tactical fouls is a valuable tool for defense. You try to make it non-violent enough and, when it’s a counterattack, early enough so the referee might not interpret as a foul to prevent a counterattack, so you don’t get a yellow card. Also, exchanging a certain goal for a penalty+red card is a very common defense tactic. Check Uruguay vs Ghana, World Cup 2010.
naet 2y ago
The end of a basketball game feels almost completely unwatchable for me when they devolve into constant fouling, stopping the game every couple of seconds. There are possessions where the defense has the sole objective of ignoring everything other than fouling as fast as possible, which feels boring and can stretch 30 seconds of in game clock time to 5+ minutes of back to back stoppage. I get that it might be the mathematical best play because it forces the winning team to take free throws and then turn the ball over without taking any clock time, but they could architect the rules to avoid it. I totally agree with the block call being a coin flip.... I'd extend it to almost every other call. NBA reffing seems like it absolutely sucks for such a large scale professional league. Basketball is a fast paced game so I know they can't catch everything, but when you're watching on TV you see so many things that are so inconsistently called. Those calls end up changing the outcome of the game when one team has 20 more ft chances than the other.
paganel 2y ago
The defense was much more on point back in the ‘90s because the defenders were allowed to be more physical without fouls getting called left and right. Nowadays it’s all a travesty, you’ve got scoresheets like 145-135 and nobody blinks an eye about it.
gordonyx 2y ago
Horrible defense? You're kidding, right? Check out the mid-80's - 90's - early 2000's Bulls, Knicks, Celtics, 76'ers, and Pistons, or basically any team east of the Mississippi. The 95-96 Bulls were the best defensive team in NBA history. No one's played defense in the NBA for 20 years at least. And yeah, the 3 has completely changed the game into something more resembling NBA 2K1, which is exactly what the league wants.

lapcat 2y ago

> As for missing, the video I linked debunks that. 3 pointers are replacing long 2 pointers which also had a low percentage. I'd much rather watch NBA players miss 3's than watch a 23 minute YouTube video of someone talking about missing 3's. ;-) But the NBA FG% in 2025 is 46.5%, while it was 49.1% in 1985, so I'm skeptical that 3 pointers are simply replacing long 2 pointers with equal percentages. Obviously the % would go down the farther you get from the basket. > And in turn, the game has become less crowded and more spread out, leading to a higher percentage on dunks and layups Crowding is not necessarily bad. A contested shot is interesting; an uncontested shot, not so much. Even uncontested dunks are less interesting than contested dunks.

hardwaregeek 2y ago
That's not a huge difference. 3% is like an average of 3 extra misses, which is probably not even that noticeable with variance. 3 pointers are not replacing 2 pointers with equal percentages, but they are creating opportunities for higher percentage 2 pointers. > Crowding is not necessarily bad. A contested shot is interesting; an uncontested shot, not so much. Even uncontested dunks are less interesting than contested dunks. That's because you're thinking of a really cool dunk, not a big man backing down his man for like 20 seconds and throwing up a clanker that gets rebounded into another 20 second post possession. Realistically that's what a lot of offense was like back in the day. There's just selective nostalgia for the really cool plays.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > That's not a huge difference. 3% is like an average of 3 extra misses More like 5 extra misses per game. And we're getting more uncontested misses today. > a big man backing down his man for like 20 seconds and throwing up a clanker that gets rebounded into another 20 second post possession. Realistically that's what a lot of offense was like back in the day. But this clearly wasn't happening 64% of the time. The irony is that contemporary players are better shooters. Yet their overall shooting % is lower, because they're consistently taking longer, harder shots.
  - 2y ago