The same Bob Ryan, who referred to the NBA All-Star Game as a “disgraceful farce,” has a much bolder take on the league’s current state. The longtime columnist and frequent Around the Horn contributor isn’t too fond of what the game has become, lamenting its current state during a recent podcast appearance.
On OutKick’s The Ricky Cobb Show, Ryan sounded off on what 3-pointers have done to the game of basketball. Now, he isn’t the only one to hold this opinion, as the legendary Bob Costas once held a candle to the same idea. But Ryan took it a step further, casting the 3-point shot not as an evolution but as a scourge on the game he once admired.
“For me, the 3-point shot is the single worst thing to happen to basketball in my lifetime,” Ryan said, as covered by Fox News Digital. “And let’s back up for a little history. The ABA did not introduce the 3-point shot. The ABA absorbed the 3-point shot. The 3-point shot, as we know, it was a gimmick of a promotor. It was the gimmick of a promotor, that man being Abe Sacks, the impresario of the Harlem Globetrotters who founded a league in 1961 called the American Basketball League he hoped would be an opposition to the NBA.
“That league lasted a year and a half; it folded in the second year, but he had a 3-point shot because he needed a gimmick. The Eastern League, which was a league I was quite familiar with, having grown up in Trenton, New Jersey, and we had a franchise. I was a big fan of the Eastern League, (they) adopted the 3-point shot. And when the ABA came into being in 1966, clearly it needed gimmicks, and they had of them: the 3-point shot and the red, white and blue basketball. But just keep in mind that is the derivation of the 3-point shot.”
While Ryan didn’t blame Steph Curry, he didn’t exactly absolve him either, as he labeled the Golden State Warriors star the “single most influential player of the 21st century.” In Ryan’s eyes, Curry’s unparalleled dominance has ignited a league-wide obsession with 3-pointers, arguing that this shift has devalued traditional basketball skills and fundamentally altered the game for good.
“All over America, 8-year-olds are cranking up threes. Steph Curry is the single most influential player of the 21st century… now it is Steph Curry,” Ryan said. “Every little kid wants to be Steph Curry, and it’s the game, the 3-point shot. The Warriors mastered it with multiple championships. The Celtics mastered it last year en route to a championship, and it looks like they’re going to use the same technique to try and get there.”
The 78-year-old Ryan knows there’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Perhaps the league could move back the 3-point line to combat a league-wide obsession, but that might not be a tangible solution at this current junction. So, all Ryan is asking for is balance — and by balance — he’d like a 2-1 ratio of twos to threes instead of seeing somebody go 9-for-40 from beyond the arc.
“It’s ugly. It’s beyond ugly. It’s disgraceful,” Ryan said.
“And that’s not basketball as I grew to know it,” he continued. “I’ve reconciled myself to where it’s not going anywhere. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I just have to try and enjoy the game as much as I can. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t enjoy it as much as I did previously.”
