“What Is A Good Number Of 3s To Take?”: Kevin Durant Questions NBA Fan Over ‘Declining’ NBA Product

The discourse around 3-pointers and their impact on the game has reached an all-time high. Ex-players, analysts, and fans have all blamed the increased attempts from beyond the arc for the drop in the league’s viewership ratings. But some active players feel like the hate towards a three-point friendly offense is forced, and Kevin Durant wants to reach a compromise. He had an intense back-and-forth with a fan on X, asking him what he thought would be a viable amount of threes to take per game to maintain the quality of NBA games.

Known for his outspoken yet hilarious exchanges on Twitter, KD is no stranger to Twitter altercations. This time around, he engaged in a relatively mellow exchange with a fan account named Jacobtheclipper, who was lamenting the 3-point shots during yesterday night’s Spurs v Knicks Christmas showdown.

He posted a clip of Karl Anthony Towns knocking down a contested 3 over Victor Wembanyama, and said,

“LOL I just tuned into to this game cuz everyone in my mentions is saying its a quality game. I see Wemby brick a contested 3 then KAT takes a deep 3 and hits it then makes this face. 7 footers jacking up 3s & making faces. Back then they would dunk on each other and make faces.”

His complaint is a common one in sports media right now. Stretch bigs are becoming increasingly better 3-point shooters, and fans miss the days when 7-footers would be paint demons. Gone are the days of poster dunks from a team’s big man, and instead we see players like KAT attempting 5 threes a game.

Kevin Durant, who loves the 3-point shot, called him out on it, claiming he had been blinded by the nostalgia of the NBA of yesteryear. He added that the game, like everyone else, has to grow, and the increase in outside shooting was a sign of growth for the league.

The fan immediately responded by claiming the NBA as a whole is a product, and as of right now, the product isn’t in a great place. He used the example of Kevin Durant and his days as a rookie on the Supersonics, claiming that defense has devolved and that fans don’t want to see the world’s best athletes attempt shots from outside the paint.

Durant, as always, had a response prepared. But contrary to his usual instant to troll fans, he seemed genuine in his answer. He asked the fan what he felt the ideal number of three-point shots would be. If the quality of the product was down because of the increasing number of threes, and all fans felt the same way, then surely they had to have some sort of a common consensus on how much is too much right?

Jacob, once again, claimed that the trend of increasing 3-pointers made basketball ugly and boring to watch. Instead of providing a number as Durant had originally requested, he declared that a change of rules would do the game good, and said the league should make 3-pointers worth less.

Durant’s last response to this tweet was about the optics of the game. He said everything looks ugly when shots aren’t falling, and that midrange shots wouldn’t change that. He went on to use the Celtics as an example, claiming their offense was praised last year for their increasing use of the outside shot, and how they won a championship because of it.

Of course, the discourse over the three-pointers isn’t a new one. Players who played in the 80s and 90s have often made comments on TV about how the NBA isn’t as physical as it used to be in their playing days, and how the lack of real nasty fouls and bitter rivalries has made it seem like the league has gotten ‘soft.’

Durant’s use of the word ‘nostalgia’ seems apt here. The game of basketball is evolving for better or for worse, and older fans are having a hard time coping with the product being different than what they are used to. The increase in three-point shots is justified when seeing how the offensive schemes have changed, and that has been the case ever since the 2015 Warriors set the NBA alight with their shooting.

Coaches and analysts have worked tirelessly to find a better solution, but the fact that they still stick with shooting 60 threes a game just shows that there is no better way to win a game than to shoot that many threes.