Halfway through the decade, the NBA has entered a state of turmoil. Despite a new, lucrative TV deal, questions remain about the long-term health of the league. Sagging viewership, uninterested fans and general lack of optimism have put the NBA in the crosshairs. But why? Why has a league that, even recently, felt important on a grand scale, fallen from the public attention? The answer isn't simple, but this series seeks to find it, and along the way attempt to identify some antidotes to the NBA's ailments.
Sometimes you make history, and sometimes you are the Charlotte Hornets and Chicago Bulls. Some context: neither of these teams have been particularly good this season and they both love to hoist up 3-pointers. The Bulls and Hornets attempt the second and third most 3-pointers a game, respectively.
In chemistry, when you mix two volatile chemicals you can get a nasty reaction, or in this case, 75 combined missed 3-pointers. On Dec. 13 these teams shot-chucked their way into the history books combining to miss the most 3-pointers in a game in NBA history. Then, they matched their total just weeks later.
Games like this have become the norm. The NBA has become a hyper-optimized league that prioritizes analytical efficiency. While the quality of athlete and skill far surpass other eras, the games themselves are not fun to watch. Declining ratings don’t lie — something is forcing viewers to change the channel. Simply put, the NBA plays a boring and stale style.
Teams’ tendency to volley 3-pointers has been blamed, but the issue is deeper than this. Yes, part of that push towards efficiency nirvana is increasing the number of 3s taken a game, but 3-pointers aren’t even the most efficient shot in basketball. Rather obviously, that title belongs to shots around the basket.
Teams want one of three outcomes offensively: an open shot at the rim, an open 3, or a trip to the free-throw line (more on this later). How do you get open layups and jumpers? You space the floor with shooters, spreading the defense thin, allowing driving lanes to the bucket. If the defense over-commits to stop the drive, you kick it out to a shooter.
The flaws here are obvious: it’s redundant and robotic (it’s literally made from computer models). Possessions often begin the same way: a high ball screen or isolation. Teams may run many different actions off them, but high ball screens are a fundamental part of offensive game plans. On the other hand, the prioritization of ball skills and one-on-one proficiency results in basketball that is decidedly not team-oriented.
Also consider just how good NBA players are at shooting 3-pointers now. While the league shoots just under 36% (which still ranks very high all-time), where those 3-pointers are being shot should be taken into account. Comparing the types of 3-pointers taken this year to a year with a similar percentage (in this case I will use the 1996-1997 season where the league shot 36% from 3), the most striking difference is the number of attempts and thus makes. The NBA this season has already surpassed the total number of 3s made from the 1996-1997 season.
The second biggest difference is where the 3s are being shot. In 1996-1997 the Philadelphia 76ers lapped the rest of the league taking 5.1 attempts from the 25–29-foot range (about a step or so behind the 3-point line). That would not only rank dead last in the league today, but it is just barely a quarter of the attempts that the Toronto Raptors take, and the Raptors themselves shoot the fewest attempts from this range.
So not only are teams and players better than ever, but they are also still taking, and making, harder shots. That’s why some teams don’t view defense as a requirement. That’s not to say that teams don’t try, but to illustrate this point, how many times could you say that someone played good defense only for the offensive player to still make the shot? At a certain point there is nothing that defenses can do. Of the teams that hold the worst defensive ratings of all time, all of the bottom 10 are from the 2020s.
The Foul-Baiting Epidemic
Superior offensive ability has been only aided by an officiating style that seems as if it seeks to punish defenders. The term “flopping” has gone out of style, being replaced by the more appropriate “foul baiting.” Ultimately, this is what makes NBA games especially hard to watch. Offensive players launch themselves into defenders and are rewarded. Too often players snap their heads back as if they are in a car accident only for the replay to reveal that there was minimal contact.
Joel Embiid is the embodiment of this movement. He has mastered the art of the foul bait. He gets into a triple threat in the midrange, at the free-throw line or elbow. He typically jab steps, up fakes, or does any number of moves from this position but he always ends with a rip, up and through his defender. The contact that he draws typically results in free throws. He’s become so effective at this that Embiid is a guaranteed 10-free-throws-a-game guy. (He has led the league in free-throw attempts three of the past five years.)
Here’s the issue: it doesn’t matter how the defense plays it. You are taught as a defender to keep a hand in the face of the offensive player, but Embiid uses this against the defense. When Embiid generates the contact, he puts the onus on the officials to make a ruling. Oftentimes, officials side with Embiid (it helps that he flails like a fish out of water to sell the foul). Teams aren’t necessarily shooting more free throws (the per-game totals are the third lowest ever), but the nature of the fouls is so much worse.
Potential Solutions
There has been no shortage of potential solutions to these offensive problems from reinstating hand checking to scrubbing the defensive three-second violation from the rulebook. It’s foolish to think that just one of these options would completely fix the NBA and bring these offenses back to earth. With that being said, the most obvious fix may be to move the 3-point line back.
As I’ve mentioned players are already shooting deeper 3s so this adjustment should not be too difficult. I would imagine moving the line back to around 25 feet would produce desired results for the NBA. At this distance players are still more than effective but it may make teams think twice about relying so heavily on the 3-point shot. Men's college basketball has moved the 3-point line back multiple times this century and while 3-point percentages have suffered as a result, it is not too drastic. (There could be a potential downside to pushing the 3-point line further back. More floor spacing could spread defenses out even further, creating even easier driving lanes.)
While I think that hand checking is an interesting idea that would undoubtedly slow down the pace of the game, I’ve seen it pointed out that the additional contact would only make it easier for offensive players to draw cheap fouls. This change would force officials to completely alter how they officiate the game; not exactly an easy task. It would make much more sense for the league to focus on one specific part of officiating. The target I have in mind is illegal ball screens.
Remember how I said that high ball screens are used frequently by teams across the league? Screeners tend to not be set, throw in a hip check, or flat out just keep moving. You will occasionally see illegal ball screens called, but the offense is given the benefit of the doubt. Granted, it is one of the hardest calls that an official can make because of the speed at which the players are moving. Nonetheless, the NBA needs to make some sort of change in how this rule is called to help defenders.
Updating the illegal screen for the modern game will not fix the NBA’s problems, nor will any one rule change. These sort of league-wide changes in play are due to a response from one team being successful or a particular advancement. Currently, the NBA is reacting to the analytical movement of the 2010s and the Golden State Warriors’ success. Nothing about this is new; in the late 90s and early 2000s the NBA took on a slow pace that focused on midrange creation, due to the success of the Michael Jordan-led Bulls. That era of the NBA was tough to watch and had its fair share of truly terrible games but came and went, in large part because the NBA was forced to change its rules.
The aforementioned hand checking became outlawed, and the defensive three-second violation was established. Slowly, the NBA worked its way back to a more stable position because of these changes. The NBA should learn from its past successes; take away power from the offenses and level the playing field for defenses.
Commissioner Adam Silver has stated that he is looking into the issue and a solution, but this echoes much of what the NBA top brass said last year when concerns were raised over high offensive outputs. Forgive me for being cynical, but the NBA can’t merely investigate the issues — something must be done to fix them. Fans and viewers can only take so many games like those played between the Bulls and Hornets before they turn away from the league once and for all.
