Some basketball minds want fewer 3-pointers; Mark Pope wants even more

Three-point shooting is on the rise across all levels of basketball. The NBA is on pace to set the league record for most three-pointers attempted per game in a single season. So far, 37.5 three-pointers are fired up on average in an NBA game this season, 2.3 more than the current record of 35.2 attempts which was set during the 2021-22 season. The entire top five in regards to three-pointers shot per game consists of the last five seasons.

NBA ratings have been declining over the years, with plenty of critics pointing to the increase in three-point shooting as the main reason why. Basketball players have never been more skilled or athletic than they are now in the current era, but the game is mostly played in two areas: inside the paint and beyond the arc. As someone who truly enjoys watching the NBA, I can acknowledge there are stretches of too many three-pointers, but it’s also not something that tunes me out from watching (local TV blackouts do that for me).

NBA commissioner Adam Silver publicly announced this week that the league is looking into the way the game’s three-point-heavy playstyle is trending. LeBron James even voiced his displeasure with the amount of threes being taken. ESPN’s Dick Vitale also chimed in, saying too many three-pointers “is taking away passing – cutting & the fundamentals that make the game special.”

They are hardly the only two prominent basketball minds thinking this way too. Go online or tune into any sports show and you won’t have to search or listen long before finding suggestions of removing the corner three, extending the line even further back, or straight up removing the three-point shot altogether. Anything to limit the number of looks from deep.

But there are equally smart basketball folks out there who are on the complete other end of the spectrum. One of them is Kentucky head coach Mark Pope.

“I’m on the exact opposite track as those guys, because we’re not getting enough man I don’t understand it!” Pope said during his Wednesday afternoon press conference. “I would argue this. I would argue that the three-point shot is what’s allowing the beautiful cutting of the game. We want to force teams to guard 27 (feet) by 50 (feet), right?

“This is the only thing in the world I disagree with Dick Vitale on if that’s the case.”

Pope’s previous teams became known for shooting as many three-pointers as possible. In the leadup to his first season coaching Kentucky, he emphasized and continually re-emphasized his desire to shoot a ton of triples. Pope wants over 30 shots from deep per game. Kentucky is currently averaging 28 per game, a top-50 mark in all of Division I.

“I think the three-point line is a brilliant thing,” Pope said. “I think that it’s been a real win for college basketball. Moving (the three-point line) back, I think that’s been a really good experiment and I think that we’re getting to see more of the incredible skill that these players are developing and getting to see how teams exploit the fact that you have to guard so much more space. I think the game gets really fun that way.”

Where some like Vitale will say that three-point shooting takes away from the beauty of basketball, Pope goes in the other direction. He argues the three-point line opens up even more space on the hardwood for cutting and passing. The game used to be constrained to inside the arc — now, teams can use half the court to create space and operate on offense.

“I grew up as a Celtics and Lakers fan. I’m that old, right? You guys don’t know this but a long time ago there was this incredible rivalry, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson,” Pope said half-jokingly. “They had an NBA three-point line but most of the game was played as like 17 feet, right? And it was just a slugfest. It was so incredibly physical.

“What these great players have done with their ability to shoot the ball and extend the floor is now you have teams that are guarding so much more space. And you have players with so much gravity away from the basket and so it’s actually allowing the beauty of the game really to be pronounced. Because what really gets fun in this game is when you trick the defense and you do it by moving bodies and moving players and moving the ball. And all those things happen better when defenses have to guard more space.“

Pope says he even encourages his players to shoot from well beyond the three-point line if they’re open. Extending the defense an extra 2-3 feet opens up all kinds of space behind the perimeter defender. With someone like Jaxson Robinson, his ability to shoot from further away and also excel as a playmaker allows him more options in something as simple as a ballscreen.

It’s much more difficult to defend 27 feet of space than it is 17 feet or even 22 feet. Being a reliable three-point shooting team opens up those extra 5-10 feet. For a Coach like Pope who puts a priority on passing and cutting, more three-pointers are a necessary part of his offense.

“This game gets pretty ugly and brutal and gruesome when you have 10 bodies all packed inside the three-point line,” Pope added. “It’s just a wrestling match. Now there’s some beauty to that too. It’s just a different beauty.”

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