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The Sponsors

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Featured Musicians: 8-Bit Big Band

The Video:

[After THE JUMP: The things said.]

It's a good time for another mailbag (read: content ideas are running low at the moment), starting with a big-picture question on the next big shift in basketball. I've got enough for a two-part mailbag, so if you're looking to get a question in, tweet it to me or email me.

Unpack The Courts

What's next in the evolution of basketball? 4 point line? 11 foot rims? Add 3 pounds to the ball?

— Koernelius, 3rd degree shut-in black belt (@DJKoerndawg) May 20, 2020

After reading Kirk Goldsberry's essential book, Sprawlball, on the evolution of shooting in the NBA and what the future may hold, I'm convinced the next major rules change will involve an attempt to deemphasize the three-point shot and bring the midrange/post game back into greater prominence. While I love today's pace-and-space era, particularly in comparison to '90s-style bully-ball, I sympathize with critics who'd like to see a significant swath of the court get utilized again.

Goldsberry suggests several potential rules changes that could fundamentally alter and modernize the game. One that's easy to implement and could have a significant impact is decreasing the size of the free throw lane. The reason that area is often referred to as the "key" is that it originally looked like one:

When George Mikan became too dominant on the interior, the NBA doubled the width of the paint to 12 feet, which is still the standard in the NCAA and high school. The NBA widened it even more, to 16 feet, in the 1960s in a successful attempt to prevent Wilt Chamberlain from averaging 50 points a game again. Shrink the lane back down to six or eight feet and suddenly post players have more prominence again because they can operate from closer to the hoop. This also opens up some space in the midrange area.

Goldsberry has a number of suggestions for altering the three-point line, including an idea that's picked up steam elsewhere: eliminating the corner three-pointer, which is now shorter in both the NBA and NCAA after the latter's move to the FIBA line last year. While the corner three has become a bit of a cheat code, particularly at the NBA level, I'm not a fan of getting rid of it.

Instead, I'd prefer a more drastic measure: widen the whole court. In the NBA and NCAA, the court is 94 feet by 50 feet, and that's been the case almost since basketball's inception, when the three-pointer didn't exist, nobody played above the rim, and being 6'8" made you a behemoth. (Mikan, the dominant force of the '50s, was 6'10".) The court wasn't designed with players of today's size and athleticism in mind; nobody could imagine how far the game would come from its set-shot origins.

You know how hockey in Olympic-sized rinks is way more fun than the smaller NHL standard? Basketball could get a similar jolt. Widening the court lets you move the three-point line back to a uniform distance. That makes all of those shots more difficult while eliminating the short corner and adding more space to operate inside the arc. Skilled shooters would still be able to launch threes, we'd see much less of centers and other marginal shooters chucking from long range, and players who could create off the dribble would gain more importance even if they weren't knockdown gunners.

That's a game I'd like to see. As basketball continues to become more three-or-layup-or-nothing, I expect we'll see major rule changes to get some offensive diversity back into the game.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the mailbag.]

dramatization

This was how my interview for MGoBlog happened. Long ago, I was just some reader who wrote diaries. After I wrote one about one-high safeties (that I won't link for reasons that are about to become apparent) Brian invited me to come to Ann Arbor to talk about maybe doing some work for the site. I was star struck, freaking out about every detail, trying to imagine every question I might be asked and how to best frame responses. I had a brand new iPad from work so I brought that to look like a guy with his stuff together.

When I got to Sweetwaters, Brian was there with this imposing bald guy. The bald guy immediately asked if I had a drawing app or a play design thing on the iPad, and when we couldn't get that to work he began drawing stuff on stray paper bits. After about 5 minutes of the scary dude trying to explain coverages Brian said his first thing: "I'm actually starving, do you guys mind if we go get a burger or something?"

We relocated across the street to Grizzly Peak, and still Brian said virtually nothing while Steve Sharik continued to explain a free safety's responsibilities in a cover 1 or cover 3. Apparently what had happened was Sharik read my diary and it was so blithering incorrect that he tracked me down through Brian so he could set me straight. By the time Brian had finished his burger and Sharik had to go, I half-understood that I didn't understand a thousandth of what Sharik understands about football. Brian then asked if I'd like to copyedit the articles and take over Dear Diary from Tim, and if I wanted any fries. I said yes to everything but the fries, and that was the meeting.

I tell you this story now so you'll understand the first two things I learned about this job: 1) company stuff isn't important; and 2) what Sharik has to say is.

[Hit the JUMP for what Sharik has to say about how Michigan uses its free safety, what I had to say about Chad, and what people have to say about defensive coordinator candidates]