© Rob Gray/Imagn
Are you sick of teams almost exclusively shooting 3-pointers during NBA games? As it turns out, so our the players themselves. But you cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube, and players claim that the rise of analytics in basketball has taken artistry out of the game of basketball.
The revelation comes thanks to The Athletic‘s annual NBA player poll, which discussed a number of topics ranging from most-overrated player to player they’d least likely want to square up with in a fist fight. Among those topics was a question asking whether analytics are a positive or negative for the game of basketball in the “3-point revolution age.”
Over 38 percent of respondents stated that analytics had a negative impact on the product, while 33 percent were non-committal, and 29 percent stated that they were a good thing. The biggest gripe from players seemed to be the lack of diversity in play style.
“The game is art. It’s like telling a painter you have to include the numbers with your imagination,” one player said. “It hurts your creativity. This is art. It’s painting on a canvas. You might tell somebody the 3-point shot and the layup is the best shot in the game, but sometimes the best shot in the game is the in-between shot. In my opinion, it’s not white or black. I think creativity is about gray areas. That’s what creativity is.”
This season, NBA teams averaged a record 37.6 3-point attempts per game. Interestingly enough, the league average of 36.0 percent on those attempts was no higher than it was in in 1996-97, when teams averaged just 16.8 3-point attempts per game. Now, obviously, the basic premise is that three is more than two, so more 3-point attempts gives you a higher chance at scoring more points in a game.
The problem, however, is that it’s led to a sterile brand of basketball that has turned many fans off the game.
“Now it’s doing more harm than good,” another player claimed. “Now it’s determining too much. Nobody is watching the game anymore. They are just looking at stats and determining if a player is good or not.”
Ultimately, teams are never going to go backward. They’re going to continue to do what the analytics tell you is the best way to score the most points. But unless the league finds a rules solution, it’s going to lead to an infinitely less watchable version of basketball.