Three-pointers are for sissies

I hate three-pointers. I used to love them, but I've come to loathe them and what they mean to basketball. Three-pointers are the mark of people unable or unwilling to take the ball into the defense. It rewards the most for doing the least.
I get the whole idea: it's far so it should be worth more. OK, then a shot from beyond half court is worth four. A shot 80-feet from the opposite key is worth five. No? Not what James Naismith intended?
And what kind of logic is that? What other sport rewards people for not beating the defense? If you kick a ball through the posts in football and rugby, you get fewer points than if you get it all the way to the end of the field. If you hit the ball a short way into the outfield in baseball, you get a single. Hit it off the wall and you get a double or triple. You get the most by hitting it all the way past the defense. You score in soccer and hockey by not only beating the defense but also beating the specially assigned player whose sole job it is to keep you from scoring.
But in basketball if you get 70-percent of the way down the court and hit a shot, you're a superstar for some reason.
How about this: Make dunks and layups in the paint worth four. But no. Basketball is the only sport I can think of where the reward is less for completely defeating the defense than it is for not beating it to any great degree.
And I know the idea about three-pointers keeping the underdogs in games, about opening up a chance for upsets...and that's exciting. But is it? We cheered because when Rocky beat the champ. It wasn't because Apollo had weights tied to his hands. There was no advantage to the Miracle on Ice team. The fences weren't closer for the 'Mazing Mets nor was the field tilted in the favor of Broadway Joe. We love underdogs because they prevail against all odds, not just some odds.
So what does that mean if you are Valparaiso or Western Kentucky? It means you lose when you play North Carolina and Kentucky until you learn how to screen effectively and pass the ball in the post to prove you are good and not just lucky.
Consider, just as an example, BYU. BYU was one of the top scoring teams in the country. They were also one of the leading three-point shooting teams in the country and it was the strength of three-point shooting that helped get them into March Madness.
To be fair, BYU is good at other aspects of the game: they rebound well, they don't turn the ball over much, they play good defense. They're simply operating inside the framework that has been built for them. But they also serve as a great case study.
The Cougars averaged, for the sake of easy math, 84 points a game. They also averaged, again for easy math, nine three pointers made per game. That's 33-percent of their total points coming from nine shots. In the 1960s, a team would have to hit 14 shots (or about 50% more shots) for the same general production.
BYU also led the country in free throws made (proof they can get to the basket if they want to). They made an average of 20 free throws a game. That means they were hitting something like 15 traditional shots: dunks, layups, jumpers. They're among the leaders in the country in scoring and they are hitting, on average, 24 shots from the floor. The three-pointer allows BYU to go from scoring 68 points a game to 84.
The more ridiculous part is it's not even a difficult shot. The local high school girls' team hit 13 three-pointers the other night. If high school players can hit 13 three-pointers, why do we think it's a tough shot for Division I college players?
Corey Hawkins leads the nation in three-point shooting, hitting 48.8% from behind the line. That's a better shooting percentage than all but six teams in the country. If I told a coach his team would hit 49% of their shots, he'd take it in two seconds flat.
Little kids coming up in the game practice three-pointers. That's why a high school team can hit 13 in a game (a 32-minute game, no less). That's why Hawkins hits every other three-pointer he takes. Kids don't practice mid-range jumpers, post moves or layups to the same degree because there's no value to it. Why work really hard to get open six feet from the basket only to get two points for your effort when you can run to the corner for a wide open shot and get three for your minimal effort?
And that's the game this rule has created. Don't work very hard, don't put yourself in a difficult situation, have the playing field tilted in your direction and you too can be a champion. Boy, nothing says the American Way more than that.