Hot Take: I Actually Like Watching NBA Basketball Games

"Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill

With the Knicks off for a few days, I figured I'd chime in on a topic that seems to dominate NBA-related news cycles nowadays: The league stinks, and everything is wrong.

It feels as though we can hardly make it through 24 hours without a pundit or talking head somewhere slamming the NBA. We are told there is a laundry list of reasons the league is declining in popularity.

Some folks feel there are far too many players chucking up three-pointers. Others argue that the regular season has been rendered irrelevant or that the CBA is too complex/confusing. Those are some of the most common complaints, with the 3PT issue provoking the most outrage.

Let me start here: I really enjoy watching NBA basketball.

Does that make me an outlier? Maybe.

Is the league perfect? Hell, no. But what sport/league (or anything in life, for that matter) is?

Do they shoot a ton of threes in today's NBA? Yes. There is no denying that fact.

Teams are taking, on average, 37.5 three-pointers per game in 2024-25. That's more than double the league's average from the 2011-12 campaign.

But it's important to recognize the reason for the rapid increase in triple tries. The answer is relatively simple: 3 > 2.

I'm no mathematician, but this is pretty straightforward. It took NBA coaches and executives a while to arrive at this conclusion, but here we are. The object of the game is to outscore your opponent. And the best way to outscore your opponent is to score more points per possession. And the best way to do that is to take shots with the highest expected efficiency. Those shots are dunks, free throws, and open three-pointers.

The proof is in the pudding. Look no further than the reigning NBA champions. They don't have the best player in the NBA (Jayson Tatum was sixth in MVP voting last season and was the only player on the team to be named All-NBA) or the best bench (their reserves ranked 26th in the NBA in scoring). They don't have the best coach (2023-24 was just the second season under 35-year-old Joe Mazzulla).

What the Celtics do have is a commitment to a specific style.

"I love three-pointers," Mazzulla said when he was named head coach of the Celtics in 2022. "I like math. I like open threes."

And that system has yielded immediate success. The Celtics weren't just good last season; they were historically great. Boston posted the fifth-best scoring margin in NBA history (+11.3) en route to winning a league-leading 64 games. They won the Eastern Conference by 14 games, the largest disparity between first and second place since 1976. They posted a league-record 25-point wins (17) and a league-record 30-point wins (10). They were the first team to win three games by 50 or more points. They capped it off by steamrolling through the playoffs and easily captured the Larry O'Brien trophy.

Unsurprisingly, the C's have doubled down on their math-advantage strategy this season. In an opening-night victory over the Knicks, Boston launched 61 three-pointers.

How much has the game changed over the past four decades? Consider this: The 1982-83 Celtics (who won 56 games) made a grand TOTAL of 39 three-pointers over the entire 82-game season. On opening night, Boston made 17 three-pointers in the FIRST half of the FIRST game.

Three-point attempts and makes:
The Celtics over the entire 82-game 1982-83 season (19,830 minutes played):
39-for-186

The Celtics in Game 1 (48 minutes played):
29-for-61

And Opening Night was not an anomaly. Boston is averaging a whopping 51 three-point attempts per game this season, which has them on pace to shatter the previous record. Yet, it's crucial to note that the C's don't fire away willy-nilly. They adhere to a coordinated, detailed plan to hunt for the best possible looks from behind the arc (open attempts in the corners).

Unsurprisingly, other teams have made a concerted effort to follow Boston's blueprint for success.

"Whenever a team wins a championship, everyone analyzes how they did it," Knicks guard Jalen Brunson told reporters before New York's matchy with Boston in October. "A lot of people saw how successful [the Celtics] were with their offense, the five-out. It may not be a carbon copy, but everyone wants to adjust to the new ways of basketball."

The Dallas Mavericks, who won the Western Conference last season before Boston eliminated them in the Finals, were second in the NBA in 3PT attempts in 2023-24.

The reality is teams will continue to hoist treys as long as it is wise to do so. Coaches scheme up ways to score more points, so they can win basketball games and keep their jobs.

Eventually, defenses will devise ways to take advantage of teams overly reliant on 3-pointers, just as smart/winning coaches have always adjusted to the trends in every sport.

However, immediately reducing the number of long-range bombs we see nightly - which some folks seem to favor - would require the league to legislate the shot out of the game in some form or fashion, such as moving the 3PT line back or eliminating corner three-pointers altogether.

Here's my issue with these suggestions: Do fewer three-pointers make the game more entertaining or aesthetically pleasing?

I grew up watching the Knicks teams of the 90s and fell in love with the hard-nosed style of that Pat Riley-led squad. Yet, I'll be the first to admit that their offensive approach each night was pathetically predictable. New York would walk the ball up the court and wait for Patrick Ewing to establish position down low. They'd then dump the rock into the Big Fella while the rest of his teammates stood around and watched him pound a few dribbles before taking a shot or getting fouled.

Again, I loved those teams and wholeheartedly enjoyed the slugfests they were a part of. Patrick and Starks and Oak and Mason, etc., are beloved by millions to this day, but let's be honest: They played a brand of basketball that was far from pretty. There were lots of mid-range jumpers as the shot clock expired.

In the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, the Knicks and Pacers both averaged 87 points per game and shot below 44% from the floor. The Knicks and Rockets averaged fewer than 87 PPG in the 1994 Finals (New York scored more total points than Houston, by the way). Not once over those final two series did New York or their opponent score more than 100 points.

I'm old enough to remember when countless fans and pundits alike complained that the rough-and-rugged Knicks had ruined the sport and bellyached about how boring the NBA had become. "The lack of scoring/creativity will destroy the league's popularity!!" was a common refrain.

Be careful what you wish for…

Less than 20 years ago, in Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals, the Spurs beat the Pistons 81-74. San Antonio averaged 85 PPG in the series. The prior year, in a gentleman's sweep to Detroit, the Lakers averaged just 81.8 points per game while shooting below 42% from the floor, below 25% from downtown and below 65% from the free-throw stripe.

In the years/decades since, the league has taken measures to increase offensive output. Slowly, we have witnessed an uptick in scoring.

However, only casuals who don't watch games nightly complain that today's players refuse to compete on the defensive end. If you watch the NBA on any given night in 2024, you will see the world's top athletes busting their butts to fight over screens, diving on the floor and darting into passing lanes.

I disagree with the argument that previous styles of basketball were more captivating or compelling. It's not as though today's teams just run down the floor and chuck up three-pointers from anywhere. On the contrary, most teams run intricate sets designed to create scoring opportunities at the rim or from behind the arc off of multiple passes and constant cutting. Modern offensive game plans are far more complex than their predecessors.

There is an art and beauty to a well-designed offense, whether it results in a mid-range jumper from the Knicks' legendary teams in the early 70s, a dunk in transition from a Magic dime by the Showtime Lakers in the 80s, Manu Ginobili passing up a good shot to get Tim Duncan a great shot for the Spurs in the early 2000's, or Steph and Klay running around a Draymond screen to drill a 3PT for the Splash Brothers.

What about today's shot profile makes it less entertaining than the shot selection prevalent in previous decades?

Are mid-range misses "better" than 3PT misses??

The NBA's league-wide FG% during the 1990s was:
46.4%

The NBA's league-wide FG% during the 2000s was:
44.9%

The NBA's league-wide FG% during the 2020s is:
46.7%

As for the other issues, I agree that the CBA is ridiculously convoluted, but nearly all the recent complex changes are aimed at preventing multiple superstars from hopping around the league to form "superteams," which was the biggest problem among fans not all that long ago. (Tanking was the primary complaint-generator before that, but was addressed with the flattering of lottery odds.)

Regarding the regular season, the reality is the league will never agree to shorten the schedule because they make the vast majority of their money off TV contracts, and fewer games would mean reduced revenue.

However, I am fine with the 82-game marathon. Again, I love watching hoops on a nightly basis—the more, the merrier. And as far as the argument that regular season games are considered inconsequential, we have a coach here in New York who treats every game like it's the last his team will ever play.

Again, this is not to suggest that I believe the NBA is without flaws. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they can't start the freakin' games on time. The NBA Cup seems like a flop (although the Play-In Tournament has been a success). I'd like to see them address the charge call at the rim (too dangerous) and fix the replay system, which takes way, way too damn long and often ruins the flow in the fourth quarter of close games.

Yet, all things considered, the NBA delivers a thoroughly enjoyable product, night in and night out.

In a speech to the House of Commons in 1947, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, "Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried."

That's pretty much where I land when discussing the "pros" and "cons" of the current NBA. I loved the game in the 90s and equally enjoy its current evolution.

If you don't, that's okay as well.

Knicks News and Notes:

🏀 Some very encouraging news from down on the farm, as shooting guard Landry Shamet made his season debut for the Westchester Knicks on Monday. Shamet looked sharp, tallying 10 points (on 4-of-10 shooting), three rebounds and two treys in 20 minutes off the bench.

Shamet was enjoying a solid preseason and had locked up a roster spot before dislocating his shoulder in the Knicks' penultimate preseason contest. New York waived him but then drafted him with the second overall pick in the 2024 G League draft so he could rehab with the team.

We have talked at length about the Knicks' lack of bench production (New York's reserves average a league-worst 20.4 points per game), so getting Shamet back would be a huge boost. Just as importantly, Shamet's inclusion in the rotation would allow Thibs to scale back the minutes of Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and/or OG Anunoby.

However, Thibodeau, who attended Shamet's debut last week, told reporters on Wednesday that Shamet won't be elevated to the big club immediately.

"It's good to see him out there healthy again," said Thibs before adding, "There's a number of things that have to happen before he can play with us."

Westchester plays again on Thursday, and we'll see if Shamet can continue making the case for a roster spot in New York.

🏀 Stefan Bondy of the New York Post reported earlier this week that Jericho Sims "has garnered some interest in the trade market." Sims has seen his playing time dramatically reduced since Precious Achiuwa returned from injury.

It's also worth noting that Cam Payne, who signed a one-year contract in July, became eligible to be traded as of December 15th.