Yahoo Sports The NBA’s three-point revolution has gotten extreme. How many is too many?
LOS ANGELES - Not two weeks into the NBA season, Kevin Durant sat at his locker and grappled with the latest repercussions of the league’s three-point boom. Stephen Curry and James Harden ushered in basketball’s perimeter revolution roughly a decade ago, but a disorienting new era has swept through the league.
The defending champion Boston Celtics launched 61 attempts from behind the arc on opening night, and Celtics star Jayson Tatum put up 18 by himself against the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 30. When Durant was a rookie in 2007-08, his Seattle SuperSonics shot just 11.5 three-pointers per game; Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball is averaging more than that by himself this season. Entering Monday’s games, NBA teams were taking 37.4 three-pointers per game, which was on pace to set a record and more than double the league’s average in 2014-15.
Players continue pushing the boundaries, hoisting off-the-dribble threes, step-back threes, one-legged threes, transition threes, early-shot-clock threes and deep threes from the center-court logo. Teams are commonly fielding lineups with five players who are encouraged to shoot from the outside, including 7-foot centers. Within this whirlwind, it can feel like anything goes.
“That’s a fine line a lot of teams are having this season,” Durant said. “Do I come down on the break after a good [defensive] stop and pull a three over the top of two people? That’s a question you’ve got to ask yourself. That is considered a good shot nowadays. But, really, is it? If you miss that ball, it’s a fast break on the other end.”
Despite Durant’s reservations, many teams have decided to chuck threes and ask questions later in an attempt to keep up with the Joneses. The Celtics led the league in three-point attempts and offensive efficiency en route to the 2024 title, and the Western Conference champion Dallas Mavericks ranked second in three-point attempts per game in 2023-24.
After getting his first taste of celebratory champagne, Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla doubled down on his obsession with three-point generation. Entering Tuesday night’s game against the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston is the only team this season - and just the third in league history - to attempt more three-pointers than two-pointers. While Harden’s Houston Rockets leaned more on threes than twos in 2018-19 and 2019-20, the Celtics have distorted the outside-inside balance more than any team in history by taking 51.1 three-pointers and 39.7 two-pointers per game.
With its current shot profile, Boston is on track to become the first team to average 50 three-point attempts, more than double its output in the 2014-15 season. By comparison, Harden’s Rockets topped out at 45.4 three-point attempts in 2018-19, and Curry’s Golden State Warriors peaked with 43.2 in 2022-23.
“I love three-pointers,” Mazzulla said shortly after taking over the Celtics in 2022. “I like math. I like open threes. I like space. I think it’s a huge strength of our team.”
Boston has painstakingly assembled a roster to fit Mazzulla’s vision: Eight Celtics attempted at least 200 three-pointers last season, and all five starters made at least 100. Tatum is averaging a career-high 11.1 three-point attempts, up from 8.2 in 2023-24, for a Celtics team that ranks second in offensive efficiency.
Tatum, 26, is part of a growing trend. When Curry averaged 8.1 three-point attempts during his 2014-15 MVP campaign, he was the only player in the league to shoot more than eight per game. Last season, 16 players reached that threshold. This season, a whopping 21 players are firing with 2015 Curry-like frequency.
The NBA’s younger generation clearly doesn’t share Durant’s hesitancy. Recent high draft picks Anthony Edwards, Ball, Jalen Green, Brandon Miller and Victor Wembanyama are averaging at least eight three-point attempts while relying more heavily on the outside shot than they did last season.
Remarkably, that group knows no positional bounds - it includes a flashy point guard in Ball, a physical shooting guard in Edwards, a prototypical small forward in Miller and a 7-foot-4 center in Wembanyama.
“F— ’em,” Edwards said, when asked for his message to critics who think he is shooting too frequently from the outside. Wembanyama had a less profane but similarly dismissive response to the same question: “If I’m open, I’m going to keep shooting them.”
The shamrock influence is clear: Ball and Miller play for Hornets Coach Charles Lee, a former Celtics assistant, while Green plays for Rockets Coach Ime Udoka, who preceded Mazzulla in Boston.
On the team level, many of this summer’s most prominent moves were geared toward increasing three-point volume: The New York Knicks traded for Karl-Anthony Towns, the Philadelphia 76ers signed Paul George, and the Mavericks added Klay Thompson. The Phoenix Suns, who hired Mike Budenholzer as coach in May, entered Monday attempting 40.1 three-pointers per game, way up from their average of 32.6 last season and easily on pace for a franchise record.
“Whenever a team wins a championship, everyone analyzes how they did it,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said last month. “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.”
Given Mazzulla’s unshakable belief in the mathematical benefits of the three-pointer and a competitive landscape that is being reshaped in Boston’s mold, it’s fair to wonder what might prompt a philosophical correction. The Rockets famously missed 27 consecutive three-pointers to lose Game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference finals, and they had difficulties in subsequent postseasons when Harden’s heavy individual burden caught up to him.
Boston and its copycats appear focused on circumventing that potential weakness: If everyone can shoot threes at a reasonable clip, the offensive machine is less reliant upon a single star. The Celtics were crowned as champions even though Tatum endured a shooting slump that saw him connect on just 28.3 percent of his three-pointers during the 2024 playoffs.
If Boston wins another title, or comes close, its rivals seemingly would be motivated to follow Mazzulla’s approach by restructuring their offenses to generate more threes than twos. The leaguewide gap between twos and threes has never been smaller, and it’s possible to imagine the NBA as a whole eventually following the Celtics’ lead.
“The game continues to change,” Celtics center Al Horford said. “Even from last year, I think it’s different. I feel like people are shooting more threes now and playing more of a style like we play. It’s more and more teams. That’s an adjustment.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has yet to take proactive steps to slow this sea change - such as pushing back the three-point arc or eliminating the bend that allows shorter three-pointers from the corners - but fans could have a say if the three-point boom continues unchecked. Perhaps modern basketball’s “bad shot” will become the one that’s no longer thrilling because everyone already has seen it too many times to count.
“The league needs to change the rules,” Fox Sports commentator Nick Wright said. “The smart way to play is probably what the Celtics did on opening night: shoot 60 [three-pointers]. That’s the best strategy, but it’s also terrible television.”
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