Here's what they do in the G-League.vikeinmontana wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 1:57 pmGood points Kapp. Adding the 3pt shot has made the game much better for all the reasons you described. You're simply forced to defend the entire half court, and not just post up under the hoop. It's also played a huge role in the overall evolution of the basketball player. Big men can do things that dominant big men were never able to do 20+ years ago. And because of this you have to defend them completely different as well.J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 8:11 am
This is where I disagree.
Before the 3-point shot, and really before the basketball world discovered that you could win by making the 3-pointer a significant part of the game, you could hide bad defenders by packing the lane. The court was clogged. The game was all about which team had the best big man. The objective was to score from as close to the basket as possible, and that’s where the 7-footers lived.
Now if you don’t defend all over the floor, you get exposed. The floor is much more spread, which means you don’t get as much help on defense. It has opened up the passing game and more motion-based offenses. Teams with 7-footers are often at a disadvantage because most of those guys aren’t mobile enough defensively. I live in Iowa and watch a lot of Hawkeye basketball. They are perennially one of the highest-scoring teams in the nation. They play a fan-pleasing style of up-tempo basketball with lots of players having the green light to put up threes whenever they want. They win 20 games every year. But they’re never a true contender, either in the Big Ten or nationally. The reason? Fran McCaffery’s teams are never any good defensively.
Bottom line, defense is anything but outlawed. If you can’t defend, you don’t win. It’s true in college ball, and it’s true in the NBA. Golden State won four titles, and everybody thought it was because of Curry, Durant and Thompson raining 3s. But the truth is that they won those titles in large part because they were the best defensive team in the NBA, by every meaningful metric. Defense may not win championships in football anymore, but it certainly does in basketball.
If we're changing the game we may as well start giving 2 points for free throws too....
When you're fouled in the act of shooting, you get one shot. If you make it, you get 2 points. If you miss, it's like you missed both free throws. Same when you're in the penalty and it's a non-shooting foul. They call it "one for two."
Don't know if I like it, but it sure speeds the game up. They play a full 48-minute game in about 2 hours. Of course, no TV timeouts helps.