The NBA today is a vastly different league than it was a generation ago. Teams are shooting a lot of 3s and scoring a lot of points, and there’s also seemingly not as much physicality in the league as there once was.
Golden State Warriors defensive star Draymond Green recently opined that NBA games have become boring. He referenced an interview from Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant in which the Hall of Famer called today’s NBA “accidental basketball.”
“It’s all penetrate and pitch,” Bryant said in that interview. “You may make the shot, you may not.”
Green thinks Bryant nailed it.
“He couldn’t have been more right,” Green said.
Bryant was near the tail end of his stint with the Lakers as Green was making a name for himself in the NBA. The guard retired following the 2015-16 campaign and a legendary final game against the Utah Jazz in April of 2016.
It’s not uncommon nowadays for NBA teams to merely hand their top offensive players the ball and tell them to go to work and get a bucket. With all the skilled scorers that play in the league today such as Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum and others, isolation basketball arguably isn’t just normalized — it’s celebrated.
Oftentimes, a star player may look to create a shot by penetrating. If a good shot is available, the player may take it, but if not, the player may kick the ball to a teammate on the perimeter to set up for a 3-point shot.
There are also teams in today’s league that don’t often make adjustments on the offensive side of the ball, instead sticking with a certain modus operandi regardless if it’s working or not. For example, the Boston Celtics love to let it fly from 3-point range and average the most 3s attempted per game this season.
But Boston isn’t always red-hot from deep and has had its fair share of cold shooting nights since the start of the campaign. In a November win over the Washington Wizards, Boston shot just 23.9 percent from deep, but the fact that the misses piled up didn’t seem to deter the team from hoisting 3s. The Celtics attempted a whopping 46 3-pointers in the game.
Maybe if the league can cut down on “accidental basketball” as Bryant eloquently put it, the NBA would see its ratings rise. Green’s comments alone aren’t likely to spark any changes, but it’s possible that the game will evolve in a way that excites everyone moving forward.
