More deep (three) thoughts

A few more thoughts on today’s piece on the ever-increasing importance of the three-point shot …

In the memoirs of Johnny Most, the late Boston Celtics broadcaster, there's an entertaining passage that details how Bob Cousy, the hall of fame point guard of the Celtics' championship juggernaut of the 1950s and '60s, would get worked into a tizzy watching Danny Ainge fire up three-pointers on 4-on-3 fast breaks.

Ainge, the Celtics' shooting guard during their run to three championships in the 1980s, knew a thing or two about what he was doing, even if it went against the orthodoxy of earlier eras. "Figure out the math, Johnny," Ainge was quoted as saying to Most. "My three-point percentage (and Ainge was shooting better than 40% from behind the arc at the time), is really better than a guy who's shooting 60% with two-point shots … I don’t think (Cousy's) 38% lifetime shooting percentage gives him ammunition to knock my three-point accuracy."

You hear a lot of Cousy-ish purists still saying the same thing. But Ainge, of course, was on to something. Off the fast break, in the half-court game -- if the numbers tell you anything this season, it’s that a lot of teams see the three-pointer as a shot for all occasions. As I mentioned in the piece, 12 teams are shooting 20 or more three-pointers a game this year when you round to the nearest attempt. Last year six teams could say the same thing. The year before that, only four teams took that many per game. It's still early in the season, of course, so it’ll be interesting to see if the pace keeps up – or if it increases.

My bet is the three-pointers will be hoisted in even greater numbers. It’s hard to find the team that has reached the law of diminishing returns on its three-point gunning. And it’s interesting that even though the number of attempts per game has gone up around the league almost every year in recent memory, the league-wide three-point percentage has stabilized at around 35% every season.

Maurizio Gher ardini, the Raptors assistant general manager, had some interesting thoughts on the three-ball that I couldn't jam into the petroleum-based story.

"(For) the young generations, the players growing up, the three-point shot has become a very common weapon, just like a bounce pass or a hook shot or any fundamental. Anybody can do that," said Gherardini. "If you remember at the beginning, there were only the three-point specialists. Only a very few players even thought and tried to take a three-pointer in the game. Now anybody can take a three-pointer. It's something that's become part of every player’s routine, including the big men when they practice."

Gherardini said that, obviously, the three-pointer is even more integral in the European game. That's got a lot to do with the FIBA three-point line, which is a mere 20 feet, 6 inches from the target (compared to the NBA line, which is 23 feet, 9 inches around its arc and 22 feet in the corners). Gherardini, who made his name as an executive in Italy before coming to Toronto before last season, said there is plenty of discussion about moving the FIBA line back a step or so.

The essence of the shot, he said, has changed.

"It used to be extraordinary. Now it's not extraordinary anymore," said Gherardini. "It's almost time to make a four-point shot."

Actually, someone's already done that. The American Basketball Association, the reincarnated minor league that takes its name from the NBA rival that popularized the three-pointer in the 1970s, has a four-point shot. Anything taken from behind the centre line is a quadruple.

Last week the idea of a four-point NBA shot was posited to Donyell Marshall, the Cleveland Cavaliers shooting specialist who did some good gunning for the Raptors a few years ago.

"A four-point shot, that's some made-for-TV stuff – that’s not the game of basketball," said Marshall.

Doesn't that sound like something Cousy might have said about trigger-happy Ainge in the 1980s?

Dave Feschuk