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Comment by bballfan133 | Hacker News Reader

I really dislike this talking point.

1) That people who don't enjoy what they see are just unsophisticated.

2) That today's basketball is better because players have more skill and plays are more complex. I don't think that's the point at all.

I've personally found it hard to sit through games this season - it feels like there isn't much at stake.

What happens in the first quarter is a mere blip. And even in the fourth, it seems like just which shots happen to go in by chance.

I feel like the Thinking Basketball approach might be exactly what's unenjoyable - devaluing individual moments for the sake of theory.

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"The regular season is too long" and "the first quarter doesn't matter" (make that anything before the last 5 minutes, really) are practically ancient complaints at this point. Decades long.

"Too many threes" is a more novel complaint but one that should self-correct in a couple of ways:

* the passing/screens/movement that leads to a good look at a three is often pretty fun

* taking bad threes has a lot less mathematical advantage and as defenses get better at shutting down the schemes for the good ones, the best teams will adjust what other looks they try to generate

I would also be fine with moving the line back, or getting rid of the corner three entirely. The fixed-distance shot is an easier skill than being able to hit jumpers from various distances so as long as its easy-enough then you're never gonna see players who don't otherwise have much offensive game train themselves to be 3pt specialists.

1. <- I think this is a good thing to focus on, and even lightly touched on in the video. The idea should be that you don't _need_ to be sophisticated to enjoy the sport. The NFL does well in this regard because it's pretty easy to understand that moving the ball forward is good, losing the ball is bad.

Where basketball misses there is that the "get the ball in the hoop" portion of that is _really_ boring now. I'd wager that people don't want to be concerned with some 3rd man setting a screen on the other side of the court allowing some 2nd man to set up behind a pick from a 4th man to get passed the ball from the 1st man to shoot a three... and then clank it off the rim. Then, rinse and repeat on both ends. The end result is that the "get the ball in the hoop" part just feels like a back-and-forth 3-point shootaround, even though the actual sequence is far more complex.

So missed shots are boring? I think most people would go the opposite way, wanting defenses to be more empowered and 3 pointers harder to make.

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