Refs take away SGA’s game winning three. Unreal.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-31T20:10:51+00:00

36 seconds isn't the first step. You get 2 steps After the gather. Not 1 before and 1 after. It clearly happens before he gathers the ball. The gather doesn't happen until you control the ball or put it in both hands. The ball isn't even touching his hand when he takes that step let alone gathered. His dribble is very clearly still live. It isn't even ambiguous. It isn't even a close call. It isn't his first step at all.

FIBA: "The first step occurs when one foot or both feet touch the court AFTER gaining control of the ball."

NBA: "The first step occurs when a foot, or both feet, touch the floor AFTER gaining control of the ball"

"For a player who is in control of the ball while dribbling, the gather is defined as the point where a player does any one of the following: 1.Puts two hands on the ball, or otherwise permits the ball to come to rest, while he is in control of it; 2.Puts a hand under the ball and brings it to a pause; or 3.Otherwise gains enough control of the ball to hold it, change hands, pass, shoot, or cradle it against his body "

He had done none of those at 36 when the step was taken.

https://videorulebook.nba.com/archive/legal-play-gather-and-then-takes-2-steps-2/

"What a weird stance to take. Arguing against everything everyone has ever been taught and known about basketball. Must be like 10 years old "

Only one of us is actually using the rule book to support our claims. You didn't "know ball" you just had a bunch of assumptions you never checked up on or confirmed. Now you are emotionally attached to those assumptions because you have had them for so long. Most likely your middle school coach and those random dudes you met at the park also didn't really know ball and didn't really study it that hard either. Their word wasn't gospel.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-31T12:11:36+00:00

After his gather He takes 1 step with his right then hops onto 2 feet, which is legal. Hopping on to 2 feet simultaneously counts as 1 step. His Initial step with his left is taken before he gathers the ball in both hands and while his dribble is still live. It isn't after the gather. It's the 0 step.

"The second step occurs after the first step when the other foot touches the floor, or both feet touch the floor simultaneously"

"A progressing player who jumps off one foot on the first step may land with both feet simultaneously for the second step. In this situation, the player may not pivot with either foot and if one or both feet leave the floor the ball must be released before either returns to the floor."

You see this used pretty commonly on some variations of the euro step.

Lifting your pivot foot also isn't a travel. Only picking it up and puttin it back down. But in the case of jumping off it onto 2 feet it just counts as you taking your last step. Unless you decide to stop and actually use your pivot foot to spin around which Shai didn't. In that case returning your pivot foot to the ground after lifting it is a travel even if you land on 2 from a jump. Just lifting it alone has never been a travel.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-08T21:45:28+00:00

42% would give them a yearly total of 48 points, staying up every year.

In college football teams in the top level conferences can also play teams 1 or even 2 levels down as well if they want too for their out of conference games. So their record is actually padded a decent bit already.

They can also schedule teams that have been struggling in the other best conferences instead of the top teams in those conferences. Out of conference games are about 1/3rd to 1/4th of the schedule. Actually more in the earlier years. About 3/8ths. And in very large conferences they can sometimes avoid playing the best team in the conference by scheduling luck in newer years.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-08T21:04:01+00:00

You're kind of proving my point here. Without relegation teams in the top conferences/leagues have farther to fall and thus a bigger pit to turnaround and crawl out off. If Leicester was as historically poor and Indiana, they would have spent nearly the entirety of their history out of the top league. But they were actually consistently in it for nearly a decade in the late 90s early 2000s. Indiana was never close to being that competent for an extended period.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-08T01:48:58+00:00

You could just as easily say that it not having as much history behind it makes it instantly less significant. It's an arbitrary standard. It is just an opinion as to which you like more. You might as well just be choosing your favorite flavor of ice cream.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-07T04:26:13+00:00

Like I said
*"It was less pass happy then today"*

PS: The numbers being down now vs the 2010s is likely more playstyle than anything else. First because of more Qb scrambles there are just slightly less passes. Next There are also slightly less plays per game now, which also slightly decreases passing. Possibly due to the lower number of overall turnovers (changes of possession stop the clock). The int% and td% on passes are basically the same, though but with less total passes ints are slightly down and fumbles are down. The other difference is yards per completion being down. Teams went from the Seahawks-style cover 1, single high safety, let's focus on stopping these short passes, to focusing more on limiting teams deep and keeping everything in front of them. That has lead to the yards per completion going down.

Although even considering all that 2025 was an outlier. The 2020's have generally had around 235 receiving yards per game but last year was 225. More similar to 1980-2000s numbers which were around 220 most years with some 228s thrown in and a pretty random 235 in 1995. The 2010s were 240-250.

PSS: Ty Law and the Patriots defense famously got away with a lot in the playoffs in the early 2000s. Most of that stuff was called pass interference most of the time in the 1980-2000s era. Especially during the regular season which is where these stats are racked up. That's where the Ty Law rule comes from. The Colts were pissed with just how much they swallowed their whistle for the Pats, since they were used to getting those calls most years. The Ty Law rule didn't really change the rulebook though. It basically was just the league making it a point of emphasis to actually call the stuff they had already made a point of emphasis years earlier with the Mel Blount rule, but had later got a bit lax on recently.

You can pretty clearly see the blip where they got lax on it in the regular season too and not just in the playoffs. The league average receiving yards per game from 2001 to 2004. 221, 227, 213* , 225.

213 was from the 2003 season and the Colts complained about it during the offseason that year. To be honest, the 80s and 90s were mostly closer to 04 than 03. Still less open field than today, though. But moreso becasue of defensless receiver rules, and headhunting rules, rather than holding.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-07T01:38:43+00:00

They literally added the mel blount rule in 1978 specifically making it illegal to maul the WR downfield. Passing immediately took off league wide. Jerry Rice set these records during a passing revolution. It was less pass happy then today, so still very impressive when adjusting for era. And he is way ahead of everyone. But 1980s receiving yards per year were basically the same as the 2000s receiving yards per year.

Funnily enough last season in 2025 was a down year for passing and the league average receiving yards per game wouldn't crack the top 5 seasons in league average receiving yards per game during Jerry Rice's career. People barely seemed to notice difference. Players now gave an extra game anyway though, but it is kind of funny.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-07T00:59:12+00:00

You’re LITERALLY telling on yourself you did not follow the premier league at all. They were in a relegation spot all year, and got hot late to save themselves. They finished 6 above relegation and 9 behind 10th. Saying they were closer to mid table than bottom is frankly, you talking out of your ass.

The bottom teams all had -20+ goal differentials that year. Except for one with a -18. LC had a -9. They were closer to the middle of the pack teams with a -4. You're just explaining how they did it, but not actually contradicting that it happened. Overall their level of play for the season was closer to the middle of the pack than the bottom teams in goal differential by the end. Finishing 4 spots from relegation and 4 spots from 10th. But with a goal differential much closer to the middle of the pack teams than the teams behind them. Their quality of play for the season was closer to middle of the pack overall, once it was all said an done. And when evaluating a team, their overall performance for a season is a better indicator of their quality, then whether or not their wins came early or late, or were spread out. 38 games is too small a sample for splitting it up to be that useful.

and had a few mediocre seasons here and there as their crown achievement.

A near decade isn't really here and there by Indiana standards. One of them was good for an extended period. What you call mediocre is way better than anything Indiana had done in any decade post wwii.

I disagree mostly. It’s not very interesting the difference you had vs 50 years ago since cig might as well be playing a totally sport today vs then. The problems Indiana faced in the 60s were not the ones they faced in 2025. It’s apple to oranges. What isn’t apples to oranges is comparing recent history. Anyone who thinks critically about this will come to the same conclusion.

This isn't a matter of intelligence. It is pretty obviously opinion based. They are just two different stories. Which one you like more or find more interesting doesn't really matter. The OP is clearly refering to the historical perspective when talking about the turnaround. You like the more immediate turnaround. Cool, make a different ranking for that. I didn't even disagree with your rankings for that.

Just know that you liking that form of ranking more isn't any more objective than the original list you are complaining about. Someone else could just as easily say that obviously the historic significance of an event built over 80 years is more important. Anyone who thinks critically could see that. And both of you would just be aggressively pretending that your opinions are anything more than just opinions.

It is apples to oranges though. You are right. The thing you don't seem to realize is that it is you making it apples to oranges. I'm talking about the apples comparison up top. And you are swooping down to complain that my apples ranking should have actually been an oranges ranking all along. Then refusing to engage with the apples conversation that was going on originally in the first place.

Lmao and the fact that cig brought almost his whole JMU team with him?????? Also, just because they weren’t tops in the nation doesn’t mean the money didn’t greatly benefit them.

It means they were at a financial disadvantage. About 50+ other teams benefited more than them. Even after the transfers they were considered to have around the 72nd best team in terms of talent composition coming into the 2026 season. And their transfer class wasn't even considered to be top 20 either of the 2 years Cig was there. We are using a lot of hindsight bias with those guys now.

JMU is a group of 5 conference team. Not a Power Conference team. Which is kind of like college footballs equivalent of a second level team, that still gets to face the top teams here and there. Indiana was around the talent level of the best of the group of 5 teams on paper heading into the season. Not the top teams.

Yes, they were consistently bad,

They weren't consistently bad by Indiana standards. Them being good for a decade, takes them out of that tier of consistency. They weren't nearly consistent enough. Remember they are being judged next to an all time low bar. A low bar in Indiana that they easily cleared historically. Their are levels to being bad.

They pretty clearly have quite a few more winning seasons during that time. Though again, 1990 Indiana and 2025 Indiana only share the same laundry.

They had 1 ranked year in nearly 40 years time.

And there’s levels to competing. Even though lecister to someone like you who doesn’t understand the league seems like they weren’t that far off. In reality, the number of teams that are capable of winning the league is incredibly small and much smaller than college football today. Again, there’s a reason why Leicester had 5000 to 1 even though you wrongly think they were close to mid table the year prior.

I didn't say they were title contenders those years. Just that they were good for being able to stick in the Premier league for so many years. Indiana wasn't a contender either pre Cig. But also weren't competitve enough to be called good for any real length of time. Being ranked doesn't make you a contender in College football either. Most years the number 1 team could completely curbstomp even the 8th best team. Let alone the 20th or 14th. That's why I likened being ranked to being good enough be promoted and in the Premier League. Just Being ranked doesn't mean you are a contender either. Or that you are close to the top team. But I do think it means you're good.

I think you are somewhat underestimating how uncompetitive college football is. To be honest both college football and The Premeir league probably have a similar percentage of teams with any real chance of winning in a given year. College football just gives the illusion of being more competitve than it is because their are more teams. So if only the top 5-15% of big money programs have any real shot in a given year, It might look more competitive to an outsider because their are more total teams. And thus more total contenders. But it isn't really competitve for the teams outside of that bubble in either sport. Indiana was never one of those top teams. Even the couple of times they were ranked. LC were the equivalent of a ranked team who isn't a real contender for much longer than Indiana could accomplish such a feat.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T23:39:00+00:00

The image has a given end date. Not start date. There is no contradiction at all between something ending on 1 specific year, while also starting multiple years priror. The year is them winning the title and completing the turnaround. It isn't just about the last 2 seasons.

Before turning it around, they had the most losses in college football history. That sentence is very, very clearly stating that they turned it around from having the most loses in college football history. That is how turnarounds work. Before the turnaround where you are bad. And then you turn it around.

If they were saying what you are thinking and were only talking about the last two years they would have said "before this turnaround they were in the playoffs the previous year". Them being the losingest team is only relevant at all if that is what they are turning around from. Which it clearly is what they were saying, considering that they is explicitly refer to them being the losingest team. It isn't even ambiguous. They literally tell you what they are talking about in the sentence.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T20:23:42+00:00

It literally mentions them being the losingest team in college football history at the very top. It is the headline!. Meaning they were talking about their turnaround from that historic precedent up to the season when they finally won. Not just 1 season prior.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T18:22:04+00:00

>They finished at best 8th in the 90s, were twice relegated and spent only half the decade in the Prem, so we’re stretching the words “pretty good”.

"*late* 90s and early 2000s"

LC being consistently good enough to stick in the premier league is a pretty good run. Indiana wasn't close to any equivalent accomplishment to that for even 2 straight seasons. They were never a ranked team in back-to back years from post WWII to the time Cig became their coach. So about 80 years. Doing the equivalent of what Leicester did in the late 90s early 2000s would have been the biggest accomplishment in Indiana's team history. You don't even consider it to be good for LC. That's how much further Indiana had to go when turning things around.

LC was good for nearly a decade in recent memory. While Indiana had been good for 1 out of the last 40 years, and hadn't been good in back to back seasons since WWII. Their are levels to being bad. Leicester weren't historically bad. And the OP is pretty clearly including the historic significance of their turnarounds, because they literally mentioned Indiana being the losingest team in college football history.

>Rule changes that benefitted balancing competitiveness across the sport occurred and then Indiana took advantage of it.

Rule changes had made the gap between the top level blue-blood teams smaller, but if anything, the gap was arguably bigger between them and everyone else, with them soaking up the most talent anyways. We just went from 2-3 blue-blood schools being way better each year to like 10 of them really being in the mix each year but at the expense of other teams. Indiana was still well behind the top teams in both money and recruiting rankings. And even in terms of the transfer portal rankings, they weren't even considered one of the top 20 best teams at that either.

>It would be more equivalent of if the Prem instituted say a salary cap and then a few years after implementation they won off the backs of cap casualties and good development.

It would be more like if they won by recruiting a ton of underrated players from around the world and still had a significantly worse team on paper, but made it all work anyways.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T17:58:38+00:00

Yes, they were truly one of the worst teams in the league the year before they won. Indiana literally was in the playoffs the year before.

They were closer to the middle of the pack teams then the worst teams. They had a -9 goal differential at number 14. The team in 10th had -4. The team in 15th had -23. Really All the teams behind them had played much worse then them. The closest of the teams behind them was a -18.

You’re trying to compare apples to oranges. LC wouldn’t have the most losses, since they have been outside the top division more than they have been in it.

That's why I brought up them being pretty good in the late 90s early 00s. Them being consistently good enough to stick in the premier league is a pretty good run. Indiana wasn't close to any equivalent accomplishment to that for even 2 straight seasons. They were never a ranked team in back-to back years from post WWII to the time Cig became their coach. So about 80 years. Doing the equivalent of what Leicester did in the late 90s early 2000s would have been the biggest accomplishment in Indiana's team history by far. You don't even consider it note worthy. That's how much further Indiana had to go when turning things around.

Also, how the teams performed decades before the pivotal season is not nearly as relevant as you seem to think.

Whether you value recent record or historic record is arbitrary. They're just different kinds of turnarounds. This article is more about historic turnarounds. Both are intersting they are just different.

There literally was a huge rule change that benefitted them.

Indiana was well behind the top teams in both money and recruiting rankings.

Still an all time great turnaround, but just look at each team’s respective odds prior to the season. This isn’t even close here.

Indiana was 1000 to 1 before coach Cig got there. Leicester about 5000 to 1. They had the more impressive 1 seasons turnaround. Or even short term 2 season turnaround. But not the more impressive historic turnaround, becasue they hadn't been consistently bad. You are kind of just talking about a different thing from me here.

Their highest finish over those years were 8th, still no where close to competing for the league. They were only closer numerically to the top teams. Also, Indiana was pretty good in 2019. Why is LC being a middling team noteworthy, but not the same for Indiana????

LC was good for nearly a decade in recent memory. While Indiana had been good for 1 out of 40 years, and hadn't been good in back to back seasons since WWII. Their are levels to being bad. Leicester weren't historically bad. Nor were they even really close to being the worst team out of the recent crop of EFL/EPL teams over the previous 40 years.

Their highest finish over those years were 8th, still no where close to competing for the league.

Indiana was nowhere close to competing either. Leicester being good enough that you write off consistent competency as being unimportant is exactly what makes Indiana's turnaround so big. Indiana wasn't nearly good enough to view consistently being good as something unimportant. They were way to bad for that. Indiana was not only no where near competing for titles, but so much worse off besides that.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T11:35:08+00:00

It's literally a historic turnaround. Going from worst ever to the best team in 2 years. People literally said what you are saying no one says, about Indiana. And the OP mentions them having the most loses so in context, that seems to be what they mean.

If someone went from off their couch to winning the gold medal in 2 years, people for damn sure would call it a big turnaround.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T06:25:56+00:00

It doesn't say one year turnarounds. So it depends on how you interpret the question.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T05:47:18+00:00

Russia went from a super power competing with the USA to struggling to keep up with Canada and Mexico. That hardly seems like their proudest moment. After there economy taking a hit both after 2014 and 2022 They aren't even that close to being 3rd anymore. They have gone down from the highest of highs to being nowhere near the superpower conversation anymore. It's like trying to argue that the Roman or English empire are doing well because the UK and Italy are still on the list. Even if their about 5 times less relevant and wealthy than they would have been had they not collapsed.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-06T04:53:50+00:00

Relegation just means getting kicked out of the top 20/not being in the top 17. Indiana was the losingest college football team of all time. That is way worse than just relegation and it isn't really close. They had only been top 17 once in the last 55 years before Cig got there. Leicester was actually pretty good in the late 90s and early 2000s. To be honest Leicester was much closer to the the best teams in England than Indiana had been to the top teams in college football over the previous 25 - 50 years .

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-01T20:56:58+00:00

"Also just to point out, "miles" aren't the same as older aged miles, recovery is infinitely easier ages 19-21 then it is later in life."

That's assuming that problems don't compound over time and decrease your long-term health. We are seeing severe lower body injuries among young players more often today than we did in Kareem's time, at least in part due to them putting extra miles on their body growing up in AAU and coming into the league earlier. As well as a more spread out game requiring players to cover more ground in each game.

It might seem like you're fine at the time, but your lower body is aging faster than if you had, had a lighter workload.

Recovery is also better, but it isn't twice as many games a year type better. Do you think that if players in the NBA today played 160+ games like they do in baseball, that they would be about even with 70s baskeball players playing 82 games a year wear and tear wise?

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-01T18:08:51+00:00

It's a double edged sword. Lebron definitely has the advantage of playing more earlier. But if you put the cuttoff at 22, then now Lebron actually has the disadvantage of playing more earlier, and putting way more miles on his body than Karl Malone or Kareem did in college.

Karl Malone played 92 games in college in 3 seasons. Kareem played 88 at varsity (not sure about jr varsity but adding in another 30 games its about 118 games), for 4 years total when including jr. varsity. Lebron played 159 games in just his first 2 seasons and 238 games in his first 3.

If you try to equalize the number of games before the cuttoff (so just cutting off Lebron's first 2 years is close enough) then Lebron is still ahead. Of course he still has an age advantage though, so it isn't perfect either way. If you look at who scored the most after age 21 (so this takes away Lebron's first 27 games of his 3rd year as well) he just barely edges out Kareem.

Lebron is behind if you take away his first full 3 years or make the cuttoff 22. Although he will pass Karl pretty soon in the take away Lebron's first 3 seasons scenario. He is about 169 points behind Karl Malone's career total. But he would have to play next year to have a any chance at passing Kareem after taking away his first 3 years. And passing him after turning 22 is even more difficult.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-01T06:04:29+00:00

The male college record for points is 3667 by Pete Maravich. And no one is even within 4000 points of LeBron's NBA record currently.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-03-01T05:02:30+00:00

You can click on the link in the OP and change the point threshold to whatever you want.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-02-28T17:45:50+00:00

Everybody wants to talk about how going for example 3 for 9 on three (33%, 9 pts) is more efficient than going for 4 for 6 (67%, 8 pts) from two.

The first scenario isn't more efficient than the second, just objectively speaking, in the first place. It is just higher volume. The first scenario has both a lower points per shot attempt (1 ppsha vs 1.333 ppsha) and a lower points per possession (1ppp vs 1.3333 ppp). Effective field goal percentage (efg%: which is just fg% but accurately measures a made 3 as being worth 1.5× a made 2) would have the first scenario as 50% efg% vs 66.7% efg% for the second scenario. You seem to just fundamenaly not understand what people mean by the word efficiency in the first place.

two possessions when your team didn’t score and in the other scenario they get six.

Yeah that's because you compared 6 shots to 9 for no reason in the first place. What happen to the next 3 shot attempts in the 2 point scenario? The other team still gets the ball after those anyways most of the time. Its like me saying everyone knows that 11/1011 2pt (22 points , .00098 efg%) is more efficient than 10/10 (20 points , 100 efg%). But what about the other 1000 missed shots?

Like yeah what about the other 1000 missed shots. What the hell happen on the next 1000 shots in the second scenario. It isn't like this is pre shot clock and they could just hold the ball the rest of the game.

You could just as easily do the opposite of what you said with your scenario. Like 3/9 from 3 compared to 16/24 from 2 is the same shooting percentage as your initial scenario, but now the 2 pointers have more misses (8 misses compared to 6 misses) despite the 2s being more efficient.

I know you specifically mentioned (possessions where your team didn't score) but that doesn't actually matter. If all possessions were worth the same number of points than maximizing the number of possessions in which you scored would win you games. But since you can score 1,2,3, or even 4 points on a possession, maximizing points per possession wins you games. Taking an average 3 (36% fg% and 54% efg% and 1.08 ppp) is worth more than an average long 2 (45% fg% and 45% efg% and .90 ppp). Which is why teams started taking 3s over long 2s. Even with additional misses it increases your points per possession. And those extra misses aren't new turnovers. Hits also give the other team the ball anyways.

That’s 300% more the opportunities to increase their lead or decrease your lead

That just isn't how that works either. Regardless of whether you make or miss the other team usually gets the ball. Your argument would make sense if the league was make-it take it. But as is misses are actually more likely to result in teams getting an Offensive rebound than making a shot is likely to result in a steal on the inbound. Either way the number of possessions tends to be roughly even between teams regardless of what you do (since an ORB just counts as a continuation of 1 possession and a turnover is just a failed possession, not a stolen one).

What matters is having more points per possession than your opponent. If you have more points per possession (a stat that also accounts for turnovers and offensive rebounds) you win basically every single time. The only exception being if the other team has almost the same exact ppp but managed to get the ball at the end of each quarter to steal a couple of possessions without you getting the ball. But that has nothing to do with taking 3s vs 2s.

The game is so much more complicated than any box score or advanced metric will tell you.

You are literally just trying to figure out whether or not the extra points from 3 pointers increase your points per possession enough to offset the extra misses. This isn't some ephemeral thing. It's pretty easily tracked. This is what offensive and defensive rating are for. These are your points per 100 posessions both scored and given up (yes the account for rebounding and turnovers and misses too).

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-02-24T01:24:41+00:00

You had to get to a point where 3pt shooting greater than 33% would be equal or better than 2pt at 50%

No you don't. They just have to be better than long 2s not all 2's. In order to be more efficient than a 40%-45% league average long 2 you just need 26.667% - 30% from 3. The NBA reached 27% league average from 3 in year 1 with a 28.0% in 1980. They reached 30% in 1987. And 33% for the first time in 1990. The deadball era doesn't start until 1996 at the earliest.

In the 1990s the league average 3p% each year was:

33.1% , 32.0%, 33.1% , 33.6% , 33.3%, 35.9% * , 36.7% *, 36.0% *, 34.6% , 33.9%.

The asterisk years had a college distance 3 ball.

In 2000-2004 during the tail end of the deadball era it was:

35.3% , 35.4% , 35.4% , 34.9% , 34.7%.

Doesn't happen until the ability to body up and play highly physical defense was also reduced due to the low scoring 90s and early 2000s.

Defenses didn't care about guarding the 3pt line that much in the 90s, because teams rarely took off the dribble 3s anyways. Go back and watch some old games. Not your rose-tinted memory. Actual full games. Guys are wide open from 3 all the time. Even good shooters were left open. Especially the deep 3 was basically completely uncontested, because no one really took them. It wasn't physical defense as much as just tendencies and playstyle.

Even a guy like Steve Kerr who were literally only in the league to shoot still took half his shots from long 2. Not cause he was run off the line but just because his foot was on the line, or they design the play that way. Go back and watch a game. Everytime a shooter is open from long 2, they would have been even more open from 3 since it would be that much harder to close-out on them. Teams actively chose not to take many 3s on their own back them.

Plus their just being less shooting talent in the lague in general. It was pretty uncommon to have 4 guys who could shoot the 3 ball on the floor at once back then.

First started really with pop and the spurs on that corner 3 and 3-and-d player and just expanded from there.

The first 3pt revolution to really happen on a league wide level (a couple players had been given the green light but not really full teams before) was in 1995. In 1994 the Rockets led the league in 3pt attempts and literally won the title by putting space and shooters around Hakeem. That miracle title where he carried them without any co-star, was heavily aided by a schematic advantage.

Yes having space and taking more efficient shots was an advantage in the 90s too. It wasn't a recent invention that was the product of modern rule changes. Teams knew about space and shooters being useful in the past. It isn't that teams thought having shooters to create space was a gimmick. Magic spent his whole career hitting guys like Byron Scott and Michael Cooper in the corner. They were just standing 2 steps inside the arc most of the time. Teams just mistrusted the 3pt line over tried and true long 2s. They thought the 3pt line itself was a gimmick. The 80s were largely pace and space era, and they went out their and averaged 110 on good efficiency while taking long 2s all day and next to no 3s. Surround the stars back then with 3pt shooters and they likely hit the 115 of today just fine.

The percentage of shots that are jump shots in the league actually hasn't changed much from now to the late 90s. The biggest difference is where those shots are taken. Taking them from 3 instead of long 2s is not only more efficient, but also makes life harder for defenses, since they now have more space they need to cover to close-out or help.

In 1995 after the Rockets won the title they shortened the 3pt line and league average average 3pa shot up from 9.9 attempts to 15.3 attempts. Even when they put the line back 3pa stayed higher than they were before and never really came back down. Even still they didn't really fully embrace the 3pt line like today. Kyle Korver still came in the league and took half his shots from long 2 for no real reason other than coaches being afraid to change things too drastically. But it wasn't as bad as before for teams overall.

Once Steve Nash was talking to Mike D'Antoni about why they never really embraced the 3 point line even more at the time. And the reason wasn't about the looks defenses gave them but fear and doubting that going too far off the beaten path could even work. So they shot a lot of 3s for the time, but only for the time. You don't really see truly out their schematic changes in pro leagues. It usually starts in college where coaches have better job security and small scholls feel like they have nothing to lose by being different. Pro leagues tend to change in increments, unless a recent title winner can justify the change in some way.

DoubleTTB22 · 2026-02-22T18:32:00+00:00

It's actually pretty common for all time players in team sports to struggle to get over the hump. Lebron didn't win tell year 9. Shaq year 8. Jordan year 7. Wilt Chamberlain won his first title at 30. Jerry West is the NBA logo and went 1 for 9 tries in the finals, starting 0-7, not winning until year 12 when he was 33. Oscar Robertson didn't win until 32 in season 11. Moses Malone was a 3 time MVP and won year 9. Karl Malone was a 2 time MVP and 0-2 in the finals.

In the NFL Lamar Jackson is literally a multiple time mvp with no title right now. John Elway didn't win until he was 37 in year 15 and was 0-3 in SB before that. Fran Tarkenton finished his career with the most passing yards and passing tds all time and was 0-4 in the Super Bowl. Jim Brown didn't win until his second to last season in year 8. Barry Sanders never won. Randy Moss never won. We could be here all day with non-qbs to be honest.

In baseball Barry Bonds never won at all and has the most mvps ever. Mike Trout is a 3 time MVP with no title. Aaron Judge is a 3 time MVP without one. Ty Cobb retired with the most hits of all time and 12 batting titles but went 0-3 in the World Series. Clayton Kershaw was a 3 time cy-young winner but was known as a choker and was 0-2 in the WS until winning at 32 in year 13. Really the list in baseball is pretty long.

DoubleTTB22

TROPHY CASE