Gary Sheffield, Jr
Videos by OutKick
During an interview with the “Full Send” podcast, Dennis Rodman explained why he can’t stand today’s NBA. It’s not like he’s alone hating present-day NBA, as the game has obviously steered clear of the physical interior play. However, the former menacing Bulls rebounder says he’s sick of watching long range three-pointers.
“I don’t know, it’s just very hard to watch because once you’ve played the game the way we played it. Intensity, just competitiveness,” Rodman said. “But now it’s more like, you know, I don’t want to watch players coming down shooting 50 footers, you know? That’s not basketball.”
And numbers wise, the five-time NBA champion has a point. The Bulls averaged just 11.7 three-pointers attempted per game during his final season in Chicago. Now, the all-time record is threatened almost every night, as teams like the Warriors make nearly 20 threes a contest. They attempt many more.
#Warriors Steph Curry has 17 career games with double-digit three pointers, most in NBA history — all other players with more than one combined have 16 total.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) February 12, 2021
That’s a lot of shooting and obviously a skill to be good at it, but sometimes fans get tired of it. Rodman, who sounds vaguely like a fan of basketball, has had enough of the shooting.
And that’s where I feel like I have to step in. Part of the reason shooting entered into the game is because of Shaquille O’Neal. He was one of the most dominant players of the game in his day, and opposing teams had to figure out how to neutralize his individual impact. That solution was shooting threes and canceling out Shaq’s freakish ability to convert high percentage two-pointers in the paint. Not to mention Shaq was literally abusing defenders.
Today, we have teams building rosters designed to cancel out individual players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who do most of their damage from mid-range and the post. Teams will continue to shoot long threes until they stop working, and as of now, the jumpers haven’t let many teams down.
Awaiting for your team to make jumpers all game can certainly be boring, and that’s Rodman’s whole point. He just needs to understand why it’s happening. Maybe he does know, but doesn’t care?
Basketball was more fun to watch back in the day, but there’s no going back. Although we all wish we could…
The overabundance of 3s is a symptom of the broader problem: The complete desertion of the midrange game, and along with it passing, defense, and teamwork. In other words, the skills that made basketball enjoyable to watch. Now it’s all 3s and dunks, lots of standing around, and (as has been since Jordan if not sooner) superstars getting all the calls. It’s as unwatchable as baseball has become.
It can be a 2 on 1 fast break and the dribbler will pull up and shoot a 3. Teams can be down 1 or 2 points and these players will shoot a 3 pointer. SMH!!
The NBA is no longer a viable game:
You have a 7-foot man with a 4-foot reach putting a 12-inch ball into a 24-inch hoop that is only 10 feet off the ground. So what?
The ONLY thing that makes a “pick-up” game inviting is that the “goal” is something out of the average guy’s reach, so he has to “strategize.” This is no longer needed in the NBA, just reach up and drop the ball in the basket… basically, it’s like someone cheering when you get a bowl out of the kitchen cabinet – it’s not like that takes any appreciable skill.
People often miss the number one reason for the change in this game and that is the dribbling rule changes, brought about primarily from Iverson. NBA weakly tried to stop it then but gave up. If all these stretch bigs had to dribble in the old school ways, there is no way they get open enough to shoot these 3s. ESPECIALLY if you combine it with the old hand-checking physical D, which would ring 3s back to a normal level. They would have to play more traditional roles, which is part of what made basketball great.
That you could take all these different type players, the smart tough rebounding power forward, the cerebral multi-skilled small forward, the center blocking shots, rebounding etc, the smart point guard running the team and the shooting guard. It was a thing of beauty, the old school game. Making the wholegreater than the parts. The ultimate team game. Now the Rodmans, the Paul Silas’, the Unseld’s, pretty much anyone who was not a 3 point shooter is now obsolete, which makes the game unwatchable to me too.