The 3-pointer: History and overview (2024)

“When you play a sport, especially a sport like basketball, because it takes so much consistency, what you put out is what you get,” he said.

Forty years ago, shooting a three-pointer was practically unheard of in the NBA. Teams averaged less than five, three-point attempts per game. The reasoning was simple: why try to shoot from far away when there is a higher chance of getting two points by shooting a lot closer.

But times have changed – now there is an average of about 35 three-pointers a game! And when it comes down to the wire, a well-timed three can change a team’s fate, like when Jaylen Brown’s 3-pointer sent the Celtics and Heat into overtime in early December.

But how did we get here? Let’s get into the history of the three-pointer.

Before the three-point line, most points were scored near the basket, with offenses focused on easy layups or hook shots. This doesn't mean offenses used to be bad or ineffective, in fact, the opposite was true.

The best eight seasons in terms of league-wide scoring in the NBA came more than five years before the league adopted the three-point line. That’s because NBA offenses were really, really fast! The star on most teams was either the point guard or the shooting guard, and they pushed the tempo a lot. Teams scored a lot of points either on the fastbreak or early in the shot clock.

The collegiate level first tested the three-point shot in 1945 in a game between Columbia and Fordham. Then-Columbia doctoral student Howard Hobson had been studying the game of basketball over the course of 13 seasons. He believed that the long-distance shot was more exciting and wanted to invent a way to make long-distance shots more viable while reducing the advantage of taller players closer to the basket. The line was drawn 21 feet away from the hoop, as Columbia won 73-58.

The three-pointer was tested two more times at the college level, once in 1958 and once in 1961, before the American Basketball League became the first league to implement the shot league-wide with a 25-foot arc in 1961.

After the Continental Basketball Association (then the Eastern Professional Basketball League) adopted the shot two years later, the American Basketball Association (ABA) implemented the shot for its inaugural 1967-68 season. Along with the slam dunk, the ABA used the three-point shot as a way to market itself as more entertaining than the NBA.

Dealing with dwindling popularity, the NBA would go on to acquire the ABA in 1976 but didn’t implement the three-point shot league-wide until the 1979-80 season (the same campaign as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s rookie seasons) on a one-year trial that has since become permanent. The line was 23 feet, 9 inches at the top of the key, and shortened to 22 feet at the corners.

Many expected a fundamental shift in the way NBA basketball was played with the introduction of the shot. Franklin Mieuli, the then-owner of the Golden State Warriors, called the rule change “immoral,” expecting the NBA to share a similar fate to the ABA and saying that the shot would take away from the team aspect of the game.

However, that major change didn’t happen, at least not right away. NBA teams averaged less than three, three-point shots a game during that inaugural 1979-80 campaign.

Heading into the 1994-95 season, the NBA was faced with a problem; teams weren’t scoring like they used to. The league-wide scoring average from the previous season hit a 35-year low.

Deviating from the high-tempo, fast-paced offenses from the ‘70s and early-’80s where teams often averaged over 100 possessions per game, teams began to play a slower, more deliberate style of offense.

Fast forward to the 1990s, when the Bulls won three-straight titles while averaging less than 95 possessions per game, and teams wanting to replicate this level of success implemented similar offensive schemes and game plans that prioritized getting more efficient shot attempts.

To remedy the lack of scoring, the NBA shortened its three-point line from 23 feet, 9 inches (22 feet at the corners) to an equal 22 feet around the basket.

It did prompt teams to shoot more three-pointers, as the 1994-95 campaign set then-records in league-wide makes, attempts, and efficiency. But it didn’t solve the scoring problem as teams continued to play slower and scoring dipped down to levels the league hadn’t seen since the 1950s. The NBA would return the three-point line back to its original position for good ahead of the 1997-98 season, and it took another 20 years after that for scoring to return to the levels of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Nowadays, three-point shooting is at an all-time high.

Teams are shooting twice as many threes as they were 10 years ago, and almost three times as many threes as they were shooting 20 years ago. Coaches are employing offensive gameplans to space the floor out with good shooters to allow their big men and more athletic players more space to score near the basket.

Even big men are starting to get in the action of shooting threes as well.

In the 2011-12 NBA season, Andrea Bargnani was the only center to attempt at least 100 three-pointers.

Ten years later, in the 2021-22 season, 24 centers took at least 100 three-pointers including Joel Embiid, Karl Anthony-Towns, and MVP Nikola Jokic.

Conclusion

When the three-point line was first introduced, many expected it to take over and revolutionize the game instantly. Instead, it took about 40 years for three-point shooting to have this effect and truly create its own era of the game.

Now, even big men like Anthony Davis have embraced shooting long-range jumpers. It’s a skill that most basketball players nowadays spend countless hours training on, and it’s where some of the greatest players, like 3x3 champion Dušan Bulut, set themselves apart from the rest.

“Like anything else that you’d pursue in a career where you constantly want to get better, it’s going to take a lot of work,” Davis said. “If you want to be one of the elite players in the NBA, there’s a lot of work. It’s hard to explain if you’re not in the NBA world.”