Tuesday, April 21, 2015

What if a coach did this?

What if he took the 3-point line completely off his practice court, and told his players, "I want you taking the right shot, regardless of where some line is on the court. Shoot from where the situation and the flow of play dictates you ought to shoot, and forget about some arbitrary spot that the NCAA has dictated you will shoot."

No one is going to do that, of course, but it would be interesting to see what happened. What if a coach taught his players to take the best shot, the high-percentage shot, always - not just a shot that was prescribed by the NCAA?

When the Rules Committee copied the old ABA by putting in the 3-point line, they in effect instituted a well-worn path where an inordinate number of shots would be taken. Thus they made offenses that much more predictable and therefore that much easier to defend. NO WONDER the game has become ponderous, with players standing in line to take their turn at the arc, where even the water boy knows they are going to be shooting.

In the good old days, basketball had an ebb and flow that was completely spontaneous and beautiful to watch. Every shot counted the same, so virtually every spot on the court was a possible place for a shot, if the shooter was open. Some people complain about Porter Moser's motto, "Pass up a good shot to take a better shot." Now we have, throughout the game from junior high to professional, "Pass up a good shot to take a three-point shot."

It is not brain surgery how to fix what supposedly ails basketball. All we have to do is kill a cow, but that cow is a sacred cow, so it will never be killed, no matter how much the game is starving.

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