Larry Bird and Reggie Miller Weigh In On The Modern NBA

Reggie Miller and Larry Bird weigh in on how the 3-point line has changed the game, as well as the idea of a 4-point line.

You may have seen the headline the other day “Larry Bird thinks current era of the NBA might be the best” being repeated around social media. Blogs do what they do and repeated one line from an article and most people didn’t bother to check out what was actually being said.

While that is what Larry Bird said, it is worth looking at the context of where it came from.

The New Yorker article by Charles Bethea quoted Bird and Reggie Miller on their thoughts of a 4-point line — an idea that has been fueled by the ridiculousness of Stephen Curry — and how 3-point shooting changed the game.

"“It’s comical,” the N.B.A. Hall of Famer Reggie Miller said recently, of the proposed innovation. Miller is one of the great three-point shooters in basketball history—he held the record for most consecutive playoff games with a made three-pointer until Monday night, when Curry broke it during the Warriors’ loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first game of the Western Conference Finals. “The league will be a laughingstock, and I will be in front of the line laughing the loudest. Why are we always trying to change and adjust the game?”"

Miller, needless to say, isn’t a fan of a 4-point line. He believes it would turn the NBA into something the meme version of X-Zibit would appreciate.

Adding another level to the scoring risks making basketball a parody of itself, which is a valid concern. Football fans love the NFL thanks in part to its violence and aggressiveness, but when you take it up a notch like the XFL did, you don’t always get a better product. Miller’s point is a valid one as the 3-point adds something to the game, but going beyond that risks diluting the other parts.

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The New Yorker article goes on to give a little history of the 3-point line and the controversy it brought when it was introduced before getting to the line from Bird that everyone seized on.

"“It’s funny how the game has changed,” Bird continued. “And my thinking about it. I was really worried—back sixteen, seventeen years ago—that the little guy didn’t have a spot in the N.B.A. anymore: it was just going to be the big guards like Magic Johnson. But then players started shooting more threes and spacing the court, and everyone wants small guards now. Watching these kids play now, I’m like everybody else: Wow, man. They can really shoot! They have more freedom to get to the basket. The ball moves a little better. These kids are shooting from farther, with more accuracy. Now some teams shoot up around thirty threes a game. My era, you always think that’s the greatest era. But I’m not so sure anymore.”"

He really only said that he isn’t sure if his era was the greatest anymore.

While Bird is one of the few older players who have said this, it is also important to note he’s one of the few that still actively work in the NBA. Many of the players who complain about the modern NBA work in media, where a hot take pays the bills. Bird, on the other hand, has a job where he is actually still involved in the sport and must adapt to survive.

It isn’t as if his quote was removed from all context, but Bird was talking about how the 3-point line changed the NBA more than the idea this era (or any other) is superior in some way.

Time will tell if the 4-point line turns the NBA into a conservative version of MTV’s Rock N’ Jock basketball, but to add a little more to what Bird meant, its work looking at his final quote in the article.

"Larry Bird is nearly sixty years old now, having spent most of those years in or around professional basketball. He is ready for whatever awaits the game. “When I played, I never did practice three-point shots,” Bird said. “But these kids here, that’s all they do. The game has changed, no question about it. Every ten, twelve, fifteen years, there’s something new coming in. You put that four-point line in there and people will start practicing. And once they start practicing, they get better at it. Maybe five or ten years down the road, fours are what everybody will be shooting. The game evolves.”"

“The game evolves.”

Larry was really just acknowledging that change is natural, and something older isn’t automatically better because that’s the way it was always done.

Next: Frank Vogel Speaks About His Indiana Exit and Why Larry Bird Wanted to Move On

Bird wasn’t rubberstamping the current era as the golden standard of basketball, but he did acknowledge it might well be.

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