Repairing the 3-point contest

The setup is a yawn

BY DAVID THORPE

There was nothing thrilling about the 3-point contest. How do we fix it? EZRA SHAW/GETTY IMAGES

I’m the wrong guy to ask about how to save NBA All-Star Weekend. For one, I don’t care. Two, I don’t put much thought into what might click on social media or qualify for SportsCenter Top 10.

That said, I have organized a ton of shooting contests. Sometimes there might be five, maybe 10 NBA players in my Florida gym, in the past I’d have 15 on two courts. It’s our coaches’ collective job to motivate those players to perform at optimal levels in game-realistic situations. In that way, we’re a little like the people running All-Star Weekend: some of the same players featuring the same skills with the same goal of infinite effort.

The 3-point contest has lost relevance. As a coach, I am not surprised: the setup is a yawn. We take many of the world’s best shooters and have them shoot from five racks of balls (plus two gimmick shots)? I’d rather watch paint dry. No chance in hell that fires up pro players in my gym. In fact, I’d be embarrassed to try something so lifeless, stationary, and divorced from the game we all love.

I could talk about competitive shooting drills for hours. I’ve devised and/or employed hundreds of competitive shooting drills over the past 37 years, learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t. The good news: there are shooting contests that get sneakers squeaking, participants sweating, spectators yelling, and 3s raining with playoff-level intensity. There are effective tweaks with partners; with stiff penalties for some misses; with special rules for one player; with defenders; with loud music.

An agent who had attended All-Star festivities in San Francisco called me this morning and said that the 3-point contest is the best thing about the weekend. I laughed and told him: “No, just the least disappointing.”

We can do so much better. To that end, I have some thoughts about how to fix the NBA’s marquee shooting contest—starting with the goals of the competition.