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The analytics-driven rise of offenses designed to maximize three-point opportunities has become an incredibly hot topic of conversation over the course of the ongoing NBA season. Adam Silver has made it clear the league is very aware of an issue he says it’s attempting to address, but there’s one potential change it won’t be rolling out based on what he had to say about the proposal.
The three-point line has a history stretching back to the 1940s thanks to the handful of college games that were used as a testing ground in the decades that followed, and a number of pro leagues eventually adopted it in an attempt to set themselves apart from the NBA.
That league took the plunge in 1979 to usher in a new era where a team’s ability to drain shots from deep became an increasingly valuable asset.
The fact that the Warriors built a dynasty on the back of the trey-heavy offense revolving around Steph Curry and Klay Thompson only emphasized that reality, and the role of the big man has become increasingly diminished as the vast majority of teams have rolled out similar strategies that largely revolve around shots from beyond the arc.
Most NBA fans are very familiar with a trend that many people believe has spawned a lackluster product defined by teams repeatedly chucking up threes that lacks the excitement of contests featuring more dynamic and diverse offensive systems.
LeBron James bluntly addressed the issue when he said “there’s a lot of f—king threes being shot” while discussing his concerns with the current state of affairs, and Charles Barkley has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with the trend he says has started to transform games into glorified three-point contests.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver initially addressed those concerns during the NBA Cup, saying “I would not reduce it to a so-called 3-point shooting issue” while suggesting there are other contributing factors. However, he acknowledged he was aware of the complaints he said were being taken into consideration as the league discussed potential ways to respond.
On Wednesday, he got the chance to expound upon those comments while appearing on The Herd with Colin Cowherd where he stated, “I agree to the extent that you start to see very similar offenses around the league” and noted the competition committee is working on ways to “correct those issues.”
Adam Silver on @ColinCowherd‘s 3-Point idea:
“I wish it were as simple as just moving it back… We’re on it. I think it’s a very fixable issue.” pic.twitter.com/J5SEXVwgFM
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 15, 2025
However, he ruled out one potential tweak that’s been floated as a possible solution, adding:
“I don’t wanna sort of knee-jerk move the 3-point line… I wish it was as simple as just moving the 3-point line back, because then we would just do it.
Part of the concern from the basketball folks is that if you move the 3-point line back, you’ll end up just sort of clogging up the area under the basket, and that’s not such attractive basketball either.”
It does seem like some changes could be coming (the notion of eliminating the corner three seems to be one of the more popular proposals among fans), but we’ll have to wait and see what they end up looking like.