The Five Superstars Who Invented the Modern NBA

The game of basketball has changed dramatically in the past 40 years. In the early 1990s, Michael Jordan said that 3-point shooting was “something I don’t want to excel at,” because he thought it might make him a less effective scorer. Twenty years later, 3-point shots have taken over basketball. The NBA has even changed dramatically in the last decade. In the 2010s, it briefly seemed as if sharpshooting guards would drive the center position out of existence. But the past four MVP awards have all gone to centers.

In his new book, Hoop Atlas, author Kirk Goldsberry explains how new star players have continually revolutionized the game. Goldsberry traces the evolution of basketball from the midrange mastery of peak Jordan in the 1990s, to the offensive dark ages of the early 2000s, to the rise of sprawlball and “heliocentrism,” and finally to the emergence of a new apex predator in the game: the do-it-all big man.

Today, we talk about the history of paradigm shifts in basketball strategy and how several key superstars in particular—Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Manu Ginóbili, Steph Curry, and Nikola Jokic—have served as tactical entrepreneurs, introducing new plays and skills that transform the way basketball is played.

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In the following excerpt, Kirk Goldsberry gives Derek an overview of when the 3-point revolution began and explains why teams didn’t immediately recognize the power of the shot.

Derek Thompson: I’ve been reading you for years. Your new book, Hoop Atlas, is an excellent history of the invention of modern basketball and the superstars who’ve served as the premier architects of the modern game. You begin with Michael Jordan, and really your history of modern basketball begins on June 3, 1992. Why start here? Why not Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird? Not even MJ’s first MVP seasons? Why does the history of the creation of the modern NBA begin in the middle of Michael Jordan’s career?

Kirk Goldsberry: Yeah, from my standpoint, that was the day that 3-point shooting really became the main course, or at least a potential main course, for superstars to use. That’s the game—for your audience, just in case they don’t remember—Michael hit six 3s in the first half and broke the all-time scoring record for a half in an NBA Finals game. And he did it with a bunch of 3-point shots. And we didn’t know it at the time, Derek, but honestly, in retrospect, that’s a template that we’ve seen from Luka Doncic, obviously Stephen Curry, James Harden. In the 21st century, the best players are now jump-shooting perimeter savants, and Michael really made jump shooting cool. And on that night, in Game 1 of the ’92 Finals, he made it very apparent that you could win big games with 3-point shots.

Thompson: And as you mentioned in the book, his nickname was Air Jordan, not Midrange Jordan. He became famous and popular and an international celebrity because of his extraordinary play around the hoop. It was only later in his career that he developed his midrange and, to a certain extent, 3-point shot. But you had this incredible quote at the beginning of the book. This is Michael Jordan at the peak of his powers in the early 1990s. “My 3-point shooting is something that I don’t want to excel at because it takes away from all phases of my game. My game is fake, drive to the hole, penetrate, dish off, dunk, whatever. And when you have that mentality … of making 3s, you don’t go to the hole as much. You go to the 3-point line and you start sitting there, waiting for someone to find you. And that’s not my mentality, and I don’t want to create that because it takes away from my other parts of my game.”

Michael Jordan, the GOAT, saying, “I don’t want to excel at 3-point shooting,” it’s literally unbelievable to read. I got a chill reading it. I don’t know about you, but I love reading historical accounts of brilliant people being objectively wrong. Eminent scientists in the late 1890s saying there’s nothing more to discover in the entire field of physics. And it’s like five years later, Einstein and Planck invert our entire understanding of the universe. This is that for basketball. Michael Jordan’s saying, It doesn’t make any sense for me to be good at 3-point shots.

And now, from our perspective, we’re like—we’ve had sprawlball, we’ve had Moreyball—three is just objectively 50 percent more than two. Give us an understanding historically of what the smartest people in basketball were freaking thinking when they were saying things like this. What’s the steel man case for what is now obviously a defunct piece of conventional wisdom?

Goldsberry: You have to remember, Derek, that these dudes grew up without it. Michael Jordan hit some incredible shots. He won the NCAA championship with a jump shot on a court that didn’t have the 3-point line on it. He won a gold medal on a basketball court that didn’t have a 3-point line on it. He had become one of the best players in the world without ever using it because it didn’t exist. And his coaches have even more drastic examples of that backstory, that the 3-point shot was a gimmick. It was a newfangled sort of addition to a sport that they had already mastered.

And I think that’s the mentality, especially in contrast with what you and I grew up with, where almost every game we’ve ever played in this sport or watched has had 3-point shots. The coaches of today’s teams we’re watching in the 2024 playoffs have coached with the 3-point line for virtually their entire careers. So I think it was just like nobody knew how to use it. And most important, I think, nobody practiced shooting out there because, again, there was no reason to do that in a world where there were only 2-point shots.

Thompson: It’s a fair steel man case. I feel like in a game like football, if they invented a super end zone that was worth 10 points, I feel like Patrick Mahomes would probably practice throwing into the super end zone. It’s always easy to criticize the past when you know exactly how history is going to unfold. But it will never not be surprising to me that it took someone like Daryl Morey and people like Steph Curry, that it took a revolution, to invent sprawlball.

You talk in the book about the idea that before sprawlball was really invented the way that we commonly understand it to be, where you have just dozens and dozens of 3-point shots happening every single game, you had this specialty of the corner 3-point shooter. Maybe talk us through, if not the invention of sprawlball, the invention of the concept of a corner 3-point shooting specialist.

Goldsberry: It really starts with Bruce Bowen, who invented an archetype called 3-and-D. And again, that didn’t roll off the tongue when Bruce was playing basketball and beating Kobe and Shaq in the 2003 playoffs. The term “corner 3” itself didn’t really enter our lexicon in pro basketball until the 21st century. And it was gradual, too. And I think what you’re saying, and I love the point about a 10-point touchdown, which is great, but yeah, one of the most definitive aspects of the 3-point revolution is it was very gradual in nature. It wasn’t: wake up and the game is different. It was 1 percentage point, 3-point ring increase, 1 percentage point here, 1 percentage point there.

But for the corner 3, it really happened on defense with Gregg Popovich and the Spurs just in a lockout having nothing to do and being like, “How can we make our defense a little bit better? We can’t seem to get over the hump.” And they changed some defensive principles there. And one of the things they protected against on defense was, “Why are we leaving these strongside shooters open to help on drivers?” And they changed it.

So before they recognized the power of the shot on offense, they recognized it, in true Spurs fashion, as something to protect against on defense. And then they started to realize, with Tim Duncan just owning the left block, that if they station Bruce Bowen on the right corner or another shooter, they could get the ball out of the double-team and throw two quick passes. And that’s how the corner 3 revolution was born in San Antonio. But Bruce Bowen is definitely the mascot of one of the big analytical revolutions in basketball history, which is that corner 3.

This excerpt was edited for clarity. Listen to the rest of the episode here and follow the Plain English feed on Spotify.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Kirk Goldsberry
Producer: Devon Baroldi

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