[Kids today can’t imagine basketball without the three-point shot. But old-timers still can. They still can remember the pros and cons postulated for basketball’s “home-run” shot. They still can remember debating whether the NBA would adopt “the three-point bomb.” In this brief article, published in Sports Reviews 1970-71 Basketball magazine, New York-based writer James Bailey reports his own pro and con. One quick note. Bill Sharman, quoted below, is one of the fathers of the three-point shot. He get credit for proposing the idea to ABA organizers. Sharman told them that he’d liked the three-point experiment in the short-lived American Basketball League (ABL). Just another example of how influential Sharman was in launching the modern game that so many kids today can’t imagine living without.]
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When, and if (although there isn’t too much doubt about it now) the two basketball leagues merge, will the National Basketball Association—as it will be known then—adopt the three-point play, so popular in the ABA now?
As of this writing, no one knows for sure. But the thinking is that it will.
Just think, if the NBA had been playing with the three-point bomb rule, the Lakers just might be champions of the NBA right now. That 55-footer that Jerry West sank in Los Angeles with only one second to go in the third game of the 1970 title series would have meant a helluva lot more than it did.
Behind 102-100, Jerry made the longest field goal in NBA history. It tied the game and brought down the house. But all it did was tie the score, and the Knicks came on to win in the overtime period. The impact of the shot was lost in defeat.
Under the ABA rules, it would have been the most talked-about shot ever. Forget about Hank Luisetti’s shot. Or Ernie Cavwely’s. Jerry West’s pop with one second to go would have been the shot heard round the world.
The three-point field goal is something extra in the ABA. It’s like the two-point conversion was in the upstart American Football League. It’s like a football bomb or a home run in baseball. It’s that little bit extra for the fans. Something to really shout about when it hits.
What does the NBA brass think of the ABA bomb?
“It’s bush,” said Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics. “If you allow the three-point play, what are you going to do next? Make a layup worth one point?”
“It’s not our type of basketball,” said Red Holzman of the New York Knicks.
“Why stop at three points?” asked another of the NBA big shots. “Why not allow four points for 50-foot goals and five points for 60-foot, and so on?”
“That’s a stupid statement,” says Bill Sharman, a long-time star with the Boston Celtics, now coaching the ABA’s Utah entry. “It’s not the NBA’s idea, so they knock it. I’m really sold on it. It’s something added to the game that makes it more exciting.”
Bob Leonard, a former Laker now coaching the Pacers, agrees. “It’s probably the finest play in basketball,” he said. “Some guys knock it as a bad percentage shot, but that shot taken wide-open is better than jumpers forced in a crowd around the hoop.”
Leonard also thinks former NBA stars such as Dolph Schayes, Barry Costello, Richie Guerin, and Carl Braun would have added a lot of points to their career total had the NBA been using the three-point play.
“My range wasn’t that far out,” says Sharman, who was a real marksman himself, “but if they had a three-pointer, I might have worked at it. Bob Cousy would have hit it pretty good.”
Imagine the excitement in Madison Square Garden if one of the Knicks sank a three-point play in the closing minutes of a stretch-run game. It would be pandemonium.
Let’s hope that the NBA and ABA, which have all but agreed to agree, agree on the three-point play.
From Way Downtown 