By Mike Dunlap
Denver Nuggets Assistant Coach

The three point shot has changed the game of basketball.  In short, coaches have purchased a bad bill of goods.  First, if you do not have a plethora of good shooters, why are so many bad shooters letting it rip from the three-point line?  The coach determines “shot selection” until the players figure out their best shot from their best spot.  Pete Carril defined a good shot by stating that it should be a shot that you can make every single time.  That makes sense to me.  However, there are too many three-point shots being taken per game, and by the wrong people.

Yes I understand the math when considering the value of three versus two.  However, could you please explain to me the value of having the wrong person shoot a three point shot?  Now we are into “lucky” basketball and the last time I checked we are not called the “Lucky Roadrunners.”

I watch hundreds of games each year.  There are not that many pure shooters out there.  Yet head coaches allow their players to fire away.  Once this happens, the horses will not return to the barn.  Hence, the coach takes the easy road and the team wonders why it fails when playing at the championship level.  Dumb is for a lifetime until we wake up.

Coach Wooden always talks about balance as the key to success.  I believe that in a seventy possession game that fourteen or fifteen shots from the three point line by the right players makes sense.  Why?  I look at the offensive game of basketball in terms of balance between the long game, the middle game, the post up game, along with the easy game:  transition baskets (e.g. layups), free throws, uncontested shots, and second shots.  We like to study our players and figure out who shoots best from what area and dip from each category.  Thus, we have a balanced attack.

The three point shot has hurt many coaches and teams.  Somewhere along the way coaches heard someone pose the mathematical advantage to the three point shot.  What they did not consider was the fact that they do no have the who to perform the what.  Nevermind.  We will go ahead and buy the house even though we do not have the money.  The hurt goes into the area of no post development, no middle game, higher turnover, lower team field goal percentages, no regard for passing the ball multiple times so you can get their better players in foul trouble, and many other obvious points!

The evidence is overwhelming for me.  I watch Duke play and I wonder what happened to their fantastic motion offense.  Now all I see is a 1-1-3 set, pick on the ball, and let it go as soon as possible from the three-point line.  I know there has been a decline in Duke’s offensive attack, and others follow along.

I use Duke as an example because I have so much respect for Coach K and the way they played.  Yet, please do not ask me to endorse what they are doing over the last three or four years.  Others may buy into the three-point shot as the latest and greatest way to play, but I think being drunk on that shot without some restrictions gives me a hangover.