Sixers President Thinks the NBA Has a 'Three-Point Problem'

Sixers president Daryl Morey was one of the early adopters of analytics in the NBA. His Houston Rockets helped usher in a three-point revolution that completely changed offensive shot diets across the league.

Now, Dr. Frankenstein is telling the NBA that his monster is out of control.

"I was telling the league office that they need to fix the three-point problem that was created by all of the analysis from the [Sloan Sports Analytics Conference], and they were arguing against me," Morey recently told Kirk Goldsberry of The Ringer. "And so it was sort of like a full-circle moment where I do think the game is unbalanced. For sure, three [points] is too much for that shot. And there needs to be something to do to help fix the game and address it.

"I believe something needs to be done. I think it's more urgent than tanking. As much as people talk about the different ways people get to threes, I think it's all true. The reality is that 50% more is too much for that shot. We somehow need to address that."

This isn't the first time that Morey has sounded the alarm about three-pointers, either. At last year's Sloan Conference, Morey was on a panel titled "Have the Nerds Ruined Basketball?" and made his case there as well.

"I think game design's important," he said. "I don't think it's the fault of the teams or the analysts because their job is just to win. But to me, the bottom line is, it was added many years ago, and it's 50% more than the other shots. That's simply too much. It essentially breaks the game.

"If you have the best players in the league taking wide-open 8-to-15-foot shots is worse than a heavily contested, off-the-dribble 3, that is bad for the game. And I think it's the responsibility of the league office to take a look at this because the teams are just gonna optimize."

What's the solution?

Twenty years ago, teams averaged 16.0 three-point attempts per game. Ten years ago, in the early stages of the three-point revolution, that number rose to 24.1.

This season, teams are averaging 37.0 three-point attempts per game. That's actually a slight decrease from 2024-25 (37.6), but it's still well above where teams were at in 2023-24 (35.1) and 2022-23 (34.2). Meanwhile teams are averaging only 52.1 two-point attempts per game this season, which is a steep drop-off from a decade ago (60.5).

Morey stopped short of offering his proposed solution to the perceived three-point problem, although he alluded to how other major sports leagues have addressed rule changes over time.

"Where I've seen the other sports do a very good job, and the NBA has done a very good job historically, is to change their game so that as teams optimize, it makes the game more interesting. And I believe that because it's 50% more, the game is becoming less interesting as teams optimize."

Moneyball changed team-building strategies in MLB, while sabermetrics influenced how teams approached batting, pitching and fielding. Teams learned to prioritize different types of players by uncovering the hidden value they were providing.

To some extent, the same thing has happened in the NBA. Every team is on a constant hunt for three-and-D wings. Three-point specialists are on the rise as well. The same can't be said for inefficient combo guards or defensive liabilities, though.

During Morey's tenure with the Houston Rockets, they routinely ranked at or near the top of the league in both three-point attempts and made three-pointers. In fact, they led the league in both categories for in six of the seven seasons between 2013-14 and 2019-20.

However, the Sixers haven't managed to reproduce that type of three-point volume.

Sixers losing the math game

Since Morey's arrival in Philadelphia in 2020, the Sixers have had an above-league-average offense in all but the 2024-25 campaign. However, they've been a below-average three-point shooting team despite ranking fairly high in three-point shooting percentage for the first few seasons of Morey's tenure.

Year	3-Point Makes	3-Point Attempts	3-Point %
2020-21	11.3 (23rd)	30.1 (26th)	37.4% (11th)
2021-22	11.6 (22nd)	31.8 (27th)	36.4% (7th)
2022-23	12.6 (12th)	32.6 (16th)	38.7% (1st)
2023-24	12.1 (22nd)	33.3 (19th)	36.3% (18th)
2024-25	12.7 (21st)	37.2 (17th)	34.1% (27th)
2025-26	12.6 (21st)	35.8 (20th)	35.3% (20th)

The Sixers' three-point shooting has dropped off significantly relative to the rest of the league over the past few years. This season, the Sixers don't have a rotation regular who's shooting better than 38.2% from deep. That player is Paul George, who's currently in the midst of a 25-game suspension for violating the league's anti-drug policy.

The Boston Celtics, who rank third in both three-point makes and three-point attempts this season, have five players shooting at least 38.9% from three this year (six if you include Anfernee Simons, who is no longer on the team). On a related note, the Celtics currently boast the league's second-best offense.

Morey's issue with three-point shots appears to be focused on game design. He's arguing that because a three-pointer is 50% more points than a two-pointer, teams are heavily incentivized to prioritize those shots, which leads to less stylistic variance offensively.

Teams create their three-pointers in different ways, but every team is undeniably hoisting far more long-range attempts than they were a decade or two ago. The mid-range game hasn't completely disappeared from the NBA—in fact, Joel Embiid remains one of the league's most prolific shot-makers from that range—but teams have correctly deduced that three-pointers are far more valuable shots in terms of expected points added.

Moving the three-point line further back could increase the difficulty of those shots and reduce players' long-range shooting percentage, although plenty of guys (including Tyrese Maxey) can knock down shots from 28-plus feet out. Changing the value of a three-point shot is likely a non-starter from the players' side since that would impact scoring stats, which could have a trickle-down effect on their next contracts.

Either way, it's ironic that one of the first adopters of the three-point revolution is now regretting the monster that he helped unleash onto the rest of the NBA.

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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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