Hype - The Opening Tip

How many times have you seen it? A close game is moving along, and then in a flurry of long-distance shots raining from the sky one team is abruptly ahead by so much that the score looks rigged.

- Rick Telander

Or maybe this: Your team is ahead by a bundle with not much time left and suddenly the foes do a deep-fire air bombardment and you lose by a point as the last three-pointer whizzes through the net.

It’s simply the way the game has developed as the three-pointer has trumped all else. It took a while, but global hoops coaches, general managers and players themselves figured out that a shot, that in places is just a fraction longer than the standard 2-point shot, is nevertheless worth 50 percent more. The math was always there. But the understanding and the will to change were not.

Consider this. When the three-point shot was first introduced to the NBA in the 1979-80 season, one team—the Atlanta Hawks—attempted less than one three-pointer per game. The next season three teams—the Hawks, the Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers—averaged one three-point attempt per game. The trey was a novelty, a gimmick, a stupid PR stunt that was supposed to unclog the middle, give little guys a chance and end the reign of giants like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Artis Gilmore.