NBA Considering Adding A 4-Point Shot And Changing The Court

NBA explores new court, 4-pointer

By Marc Stein | ESPN.com

NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn and vice president Kiki Vandeweghe acknowledged in a recent interview with ESPN.com that the league office, at least in an exploratory fashion, has weighed expanding the dimensions of the court and the introduction of a 4-point shot.

In a sitdown interview with ESPN's TrueHoop TV, conducted during All-Star Weekend in New Orleans earlier this month, Thorn and Vandeweghe spoke of both concepts mostly from a hypothetical standpoint, but did concede that the ideas have been presented for discussion at a league level.

The NBA has employed a 94-foot-by-50-foot court since the 1940s. But Vandeweghe -- who went to two All-Star Games as a player and most recently served as an executive and head coach with the Nets before joining the league office in 2013 -- confirmed that the growing size and ever-increasing athleticism of players today prompted discussion about expanding the playing surface.

"Making the court bigger -- it's an interesting idea and we've actually looked at it," Vandeweghe said. "We keep a list of ideas on what we should do and how we can make the game better, of course. But arenas are obviously built in a certain way and that would take a lot of adjusting to actually make the court bigger. But does it mean we shouldn't look at it? No, of course not. We're looking at all sorts of things."

Added Thorn: "Those seats that are very close to the court are obviously very expensive seats to start out with. And most of them come right up to the floor. So when you start extending the floor, sideways or length -- you could probably extend it lengthwise easier than you can sideways. So there are a lot of things you have to look at there."

The NBA adopted the 3-point shot from the old ABA starting in the 1979-80 season. As for the prospect of a 4-point shot, Thorn said that, too, is "something that's come up" as an informal proposal.

The mere notion of the NBA someday adopting a 4-pointer is believed to be an offshoot of a famed quote from then-Boston Celtics star Antoine Walker, who reportedly answered a question about why he took so many 3-point shots by saying: "Because there are no 4s."

[h=1]Should the NBA add a 4-pointer?[/h][h=3]Breaking down the pros and cons of instituting an additional shot type[/h]By Tom Haberstroh | ESPN Insider

Rod Thorn, NBA president of basketball operations, didn't balk at the idea.
During a sit-down TrueHoop TV interview with our own Henry Abbott, Thorn was asked about the chances that a 4-pointer -- as outlandish as it may seem -- could be brought to the NBA at some point. In a Per Diem column last month, I advocated for the introduction of a 4-point line 28 feet away from the basket.

Turns out, Thorn didn't think the advent of a 4-pointer would be outlandish at all. Rather than reflexively squash the radical idea, as you might expect from a 72-year-old NBA lifer who has worn just about every hat in the league, Thorn seemed genuinely intrigued at the notion and revealed that the 4-pointer has "come up" in league discussions.

"Oh man," Thorn told Abbott, "Some of the players we have can shoot the ball from I assume it would be 30 feet? 28-30 feet. Somewhere in there. Some of the guys we have can shoot that as easily as a 23-, 24-foot shot." One of those players? Vince Carter. Thorn recalled a moment when he ran the New Jersey Nets from 2000 to 2010 as team president and general manager. As players tend to do at practice, Carter would showcase his shot-making abilities from far, far away.

"I remember when we had Vince Carter in New Jersey," Thorn said. "Well, he could shoot the ball from the seats and make half of 'em."
Don't we want to see that? Players pushed to the limits of their abilities?

"It would be unbelievable," Thorn said. "But you know coaches would go crazy because now you've got another line out there. That's crazy."
Yes, it would be unbelievable. But you know what coaches also thought was crazy and could never work and would ruin the game and cause widespread global devastation?
The 3-point line.
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Change is good
There's a section in Terry Pluto's "Loose Balls," the essential book about the ABA, that is devoted to the 3-point line and how it came to be. NBA legend George Mikan, who served as the ABA's first commissioner, decided to adopt the rule that was first established in the American Basketball League because "it brought the fans out of their seats." The ABA sought to bring life to a sport that became stale in the NBA.

Of course, when the NBA and ABA merged in 1976, traditional NBA types hated the idea of a 3-point line. Change is scary, and many coaches predictably thought a 3-point line was crazy.

Chief among those early protestors: Red Auerbach, who was then serving as the Celtics' general manager. But he eventually came around and saw the value in it. Angelo Drossos, the owner of the San Antonio Spurs at the time, characterized Auerbach's sudden change of heart in Pluto's book.
"When the leagues merged, the NBA moguls didn't want the 3-point shot. Red Auerbach hated it and said the Celtics would never go along with it. He had everybody up in arms against the play. Of course, a few years later Red drafted Larry Bird and suddenly he was all for it."
This is how I imagine a post-4-point-line world would work. Some folks would be fired up about how it turns the game into a circus act until they have a player on their team who can shoot 4-pointers. And then it becomes a weapon, not unlike a strong post player or an expert passer.

Here's Hubie Brown's take in the book:

"For a coach, the 3-point play is a form of mental gymnastics. All your life you've been trained that a basket is worth two points. That was how you always played the game, how the game was always played, until the ABA made the 3-point play popular. ... [It] forced ABA coaches to be more creative and to give their players more freedom."
Of course, coaches wouldn't be on board at first. A 4-point line is a challenge, a wrench in the system. It would take away some of the control and predictability of every possession. The funny thing is that unpredictability, the same thing that coaches hate, is what fans love.

But it would also cause coaches to innovate and adapt to the modern basketball player, who is bigger, stronger, faster and more skilled than ever before. If the league isn't open to expanding the court, which may jeopardize precious courtside seat revenue, a 4-point line would unclog a court that right now, even with a 3-point line, feels compact. In recent years, coaches have actually had their players stand out of bounds, a strategy that has been since outlawed, in order to create space. The fact that league rules encouraged players to take themselves out of the playing field is absurd.


Post-up players rejoice
A 4-point line would generate more space and give more room for the acrobatic basketball plays that set Twitter ablaze, just as the 3-point line did for the NBA. Hall of Fame coach Alex Hannum explained the effect of the 3-point line in Pluto's book:

"In the NBA, we just clogged up the middle and dared teams to shoot from the outside," Hannum said. "Nobody bothered to guard anyone 20 feet from the basket, but the 3-point play really did open up the middle. ... No other rule made the game more wide open and more fun to watch."

This is the whole point. More open game, more fun to watch. Sure, some players would excel at 4-point shots more than others (we'll get to that in a moment), but the idea that a 4-point line would somehow make big men obsolete doesn't hold much water.
With better spacing, a 4-point line would create more real estate for post-up players to work efficiently. Not unlike the interaction between bees and flowers, a symbiotic relationship exists between long-range shooters and post-up big men. Want to leave your guy at the 4-point line and double-team a big man in the post? Good luck getting there in time. If anything, big men would be big winners with the improved spacing that would come along with the 4-point line.


There's statistical backing here. According to Synergy video tracking, which team is the most efficient in post-ups this season? The Miami Heat -- the team that predicates itself on carving out space wherever possible. It's no coincidence that the Heat fire up the most corner 3s in the league and also have the most efficient post offense, generating over a point per post-up play according to Synergy. More spacing, more room for post-up work.

Looking across the league, you'll find that efficient post offenses tend to come from 3-point-slinging teams. The Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers boast two of the most 3-point-happy teams in the league, and they both rank top-three in post-up efficiency. Using corner 3 rates as a proxy for spacing, we find that of the bottom 10 teams in corner 3 attempts, six also rank in the bottom 10 in post-up efficiency (New Orleans, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit and Utah).

You'll never get a perfect relationship, but the general trend is that more spacing means more efficient post play. The big anomaly here is 3-point-heavy Houston; the Rockets insist on feeding post-ups to Dwight Howard to keep their big star happy despite the awful results. According to Synergy, a total of 18 big men have used at least 250 post-up plays this season, and no one fares worse than Howard (just 0.748 points per play). As a result, the Rockets are the big outlier here, ranking No. 1 in 3-point frequency and last in post-up efficiency.


The Vince Carters
You might be wondering who is the Vince Carter of today's basketball -- the guy who would be a 4-point savant. The answer isn't a total surprise. It's Jamal Crawford.
Get this: Crawford has made 14 of 23 shots from 28-32 feet, basically the 4-point area that I've suggested. Yes, 61 percent. The league average from this distance is less than half that, 26 percent. (As I mentioned in the last 4-pointer column, a 28-foot line would be a less efficient option compared to a 3-point shot on average, but should improve over time as players train for it).
Who would be the other 4-point mavens? From the NBA StatsCube database, here are the shooters who have taken at least 10 shots from 28-to-32 feet this season and their conversion rates.

<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]NBA's best long-range shooters[/h]*From 28-to-32 feet


<!-- end inline 1 -->That J.R. Smith is 0-for-10 on these shots is just classic J.R. Smith. Elsewhere, Kendall Marshall, one of the most compelling stories in the NBA this season, has taken as many "4-pointers" as Crawford in about half the playing time, which is awesome. Let's see more of it. Again, why aren't we encouraging more players like Marshall, Crawford and Stephen Curry to showcase their talents from long range? We don't, and that's what's crazy.

i can't comprehend that... A bigger court is interesting, although not sure how it makes the game better. You need some defense.

bring back those 10 pt shots MTV used to have for their all star games

Hahaha - Will be interesting to see how the game evolves.

They should start by doing some "Inter-Sports" games and such.... make it more fun.

Would love to see NFL players playing basketball by NFL rules vs the Flopping LeBron and company.

Apparently another case of ESPN blowing things out of proportion. Who would have thunk it?

NEW YORK (AP) — NBA players won’t be pulling up for a 4-point shot anytime soon.
The league denied Tuesday that any serious discussions had been held about that or expanding the court.
ESPN.com reported that president of operations Rod Thorn and vice president Kiki Vandeweghe, during an interview at All-Star weekend, said the league had discussed both possibilities.
In a statement posted on Twitter, league spokesman Tim Frank says “No one at the NBA, nor the competition committee, has had any serious conversations about increasing the size of the floor or adding a 4-point line.” Frank adds “Rod Thorn and Kiki Vandeweghe were entertaining a line of questioning about out of the box ideas and ESPN.com chose to make a story that doesn’t exist.”

shdw01 said:

bring back those 10 pt shots MTV used to have for their all star games

Click to expand...

make the rim a foot higher