ForeverTFC wrote:Nate505 wrote:I don't know what "better" is supposed to mean.
More skilled? No way. A more enjoyable product to watch? For me it is. The games are shorter, and the guys out there actually seem to care. Then again this is their postseason, so comparing it to the regular season is apples/oranges. There's less 3s, which is a massive plus, but they play less time so it's possible it's roughly the same per minute of game.
There is less 3s because they can't generate good looks or hit them at a high clip. I'll never understand why a tranche of basketball fans hate 3s so much that they would prefer objectively worse shots.
Are there fewer three's? Well, at least among the top teams, there are so many teams, that sure, if you add them all including some who don't have much talent, it could be true. I know perception vs reality can be mixed in with some of these things though.
- NBA: 42.0% of shots are 3PT this season (up from 39.5% last season)
Here are percentage of shots as 3PT for top 10 teams:
Duke: 45.7% of shots
Houston: 34.5% of shots
Florida: 43.8%
Auburn: 40.7%
St. John's: 31.1%
Tennessee: 43.3%
Alabama: 45.6%
MSU: 32.8%
Texas Tech: 45%
Louisville: 47.7%
Only four took a lower percentage of their shots from 3PT than the average NBA team, and one of those four is at 40.7%, so it's an insignificant difference. Brings us to 3 who are in the low 30%.
Is the percentage of 3PT as much of a problem for people as they think? I don't, maybe for some it's actually not, but we feel it is or should be and it is self fulfilling / we make ourselves more sensitive to it? We do have a similar reality with Euroleague and with International FIBA where people think/feel the 3PT shot is less prevalent, but that's also not the reality.
What is maybe happening is that they are playing a slower pace and of course taking fewer total three's due to slower pace and shorter game, and we are interpreting this as it being "less of a chuckfest".
Also, no doubt of course that, it's probably going to be easier to keep a college team off the 3PT line than an NBA team, so when they play better competition, they might not be able to generate as many good looks.
Here were Sunday's games:
Uconn (19/50 - 38% of shots) vs Florida (29/64 - 45% of shots)
Baylor (25/68 - 36.8% of shots) vs Duke (22/45 - 48.9% of shots)
St Mary's(14/70 - 20% of shots) vs Alabama (17/56 - 30.4% of shots)
New Mexico (13/56 - 23% of shots) vs MSU (15/54 - 27.8% of shots)
Illinois (32/62 - 51.6% of shots) vs Kentucky (21/68 - 30.9% of shots)
Ole Miss (19/55 - 34.5% of shots) vs Iowa State (22/56 - 39.3% of shots)
Colorado (21/62 - 33.9% of shots) vs Maryland (24/62 - 38.7% of shots)
Oregon (20/68 - 29.4% of shots) vs Arizona (20/66 - 30.3%)
Total: 333/963 - 34.6% of shots
Obviously just a one day sample, but the difference to the NBA (-7.4%) when taking into account better ability to create and get off three's in the NBA is not much.
We do also have to remember that college and Euroleague were on the higher 3PA rate train much earlier than the NBA. They both moved their lines further, which decreased Euroleague for a little bit, then it went back up over time. It was actually the NBA "catching up" if you want to call it that, when the 3PT revolution hit the NBA.

Euroleague was first, and Decline of Mid-Range
Euroleague Shot Distribution