Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. His work greatly informed our reporting. James Dator is a senior staff writer at SB Nation, where he covers the 3-point line as well as lots of other sports, including baseball, soccer, and the NFL. Next Up In Video. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email.
Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. The Latest. While certain college basketball conferences experimented with it in the early '80s, the NCAA didn't universally implement a 3-point line until , with high school basketball following suit a year later. In the late s, when the ABA introduced the 3-pointer, a generation of coaches had to rethink everything they knew about the game, and it made things hectic.
One ABA coach admits that at first, he never used the 3-pointer unless his team was losing late in the game and was desperate for points. And as a coach, if you have a shooter with range, you have to give him the freedom to take the footer, which is a philosophy that goes against what you learned as a young coach--namely, pound the ball inside. It wasn't just the coaches, either. The fans loved it right away, but there were growing pains among the players.
Michael Jordan is a perfect example of that. He played college basketball at North Carolina without a 3-point line. In his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls, he was 9-for from 3-point range. He never shot better than 20 percent from long range until his fifth season in the NBA. But by the time his remarkable tenure with the Bulls wrapped up, he was consistently shooting better than 35 percent from 3-point range.
At one time, it was only 19 feet at its shortest point. In addition to the players continuing to improve, the utilization of the shot continues to evolve as well. They'd want you to challenge the defense and get the highest percentage shot," Elmore said. I'm not sure the percentages work from that standpoint, but it's a trend. Though the distances differ between all levels of basketball, the 3-point line is universal.
The NBA has a foot 3-point line in the corners and a foot, 9-inch line elsewhere. The WNBA and the international game plays with a foot, 6-inch line. Whereas size was a crucial factor in matchups in the past, the 3-point line gave smaller teams a great equalizer.
Shaquille O'Neal is 1-for from 3-point range in his career, that one a humorous bank shot buzzer-beater. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played half his pro career with no 3-point line and half of his career with it. He was 1-for from behind the arc in his career. More than anything, though, the 3-point line has made basketball a completely different experience for the fans--a more spread-out game with another level of energy that wasn't there before the s.
When it's not incorporated properly and not utilized properly, it can hurt a team. However, it was hardly the first professional league to implement such a rule. As a matter of fact, the first known use of the 3-point line in a professional basketball league happened in the American Basketball League, back in At that time, however, the 3-point line was looked at as an over-complication of matters and was never seriously considered.
The American Basketball League ended up becoming defunct after a season and a half, with none of the other professional basketball leagues at the time taking the rule seriously. However, things changed when the American Basketball Association was formed in The ABA had various initiatives that were aimed at appeasing fans. This includes slam-dunk contests and the 3-point line.
However, it was still only after the merging of the ABA with the NBA that the 3-point line was first seriously considered. However, the 3-point line was not introduced until , coincidentally the rookie year of Larry Bird, who is one of the best shooters of all time. Even after its introduction, the 3-point line was seen as a hindrance by coaches and was considered a way for the NBA to appease crowds. Quite a few players struggled to adjust with their shooting range, while some coaches were said to discourage players from taking longer shots in fear of reduced efficiency.
Regardless, the 3-point line in time has become one of the most important rules in basketball.
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