Episode 24: Beyond the Arc with Mike Prada

The author of Spaced Out talks about his new book examining the NBA's 3-point revolution and the radical changes that have trickled down to every aspect of how we play, watch, and talk about basketball.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey there, what's going on? This is the Voice of
the Nets Podcast. I'm Chris Carino. Happy New Year, everybody.
We're coming here for the first time in the calendar year.
We're gonna be talking to Mike Prata, author of the
book spaced out how the NBA's three point line changed
everything you thought you're new about basketball. Will get into

(00:30):
that and just a little bit, but first just to
touch on what's going on with the Brooklyn Nets right
now as the calendar year two comes to an end.
The Nets finish out the calendar year on an eleven
game winning streak, the longest active winning streak in the NBA,
the longest winning streak in the NBA this season, and

(00:51):
the longest winning streak for the Nets since they won
fourteen games in a row back in the old five
oh sixth season. That was a franchise record that matched
the Street they also had back at the two thousand
three two thousand four season. Now, I don't know what
happens in the game on January two, as I'm speaking

(01:12):
to you, the first game of three is gonna be
against the San Antonio Spurs at Barclay Center, a team
the Nets should be now I'm recording this prior to
that game, so I'm in the past. I'm speaking to
you in the future. So I don't know if the
Nets are going to just do what they've done for
the last month, and that's to go out and take

(01:34):
care of business and get that twelfth straight win. I
don't know if they're gonna have some kind of a
letdown and lose to a Spurs team that's, you know,
been five hundred over the last month. They're not They've
actually been playing decent basketball. They were coming off you know,
loss against Dallas where they came back from a big deficit,
lost to one point game. Luca don che chet this,

(01:54):
you know, missed free throw at the end, like he's
done a couple of times this year. But that I digress.
I digress a lot. So I don't know if that's
gonna happen. I don't know. Perhaps the Sturs are gonna
give the Nets all they can handle. It's gonna be
a tight game. Maybe that's how to come back and
pull out a victory at clutch time. That could happen.

(02:16):
Nets have been incredible that clutched games this year. They're
fourteen and three this year. That's the best record in
the NBA in clutch games, which are games that are
within five points sometime in the last five minutes of
the game. So I don't know if any of that
stuff is gonna happen, but all I know is that
going into the bar has now been raised. After the

(02:40):
game against Charlotte, a game that they won wire to
wire on New Year's Eve, a game that they showed
no letdown. Maybe the winning streak has kept them focused,
and you know, winning sometimes makes you want to keep winning.
But against the Charlotte team, that was a little dangerous
because yes, they have a bad record this year. The

(03:02):
Nets had beaten them twice, but they hadn't had LaMelo
Ball or Gordon Hayward in those first two games, So
there was that little concern could they get hot from three?
Would the Nets go in with the reck whords it
fear energy going into that game. Well they did. They
went wire to wire, only the fourth time this year
they have had a wire to wire win, their eleventh

(03:25):
in a row. And after the game, Kevin Durant was
on the podium. He faced questions in the media and
he reflected on the year that was. This is Kevin
Durant after the game, he said, it was one of
those years you reflect on. You see the turning point
in your organization, see different moments that brought us together.

(03:48):
It start to see us coming together and form what
we've been looking to do these last couple of years.
A solid team that plays hard every night. We went
through a lot discountar year, but we're looking for bigger
and better things in the thing that you notice about
this wind streak, and listen, I know that injuries can

(04:12):
be a huge factor in the n b A. So
barring any kind of disastrous injuries, this team has shown
you what they're capable of and they're not doing it
in a way where anything extraordinary is happening. To a
stand where you go, well, they can't keep that up.
They have settled in as a team during this eleven

(04:36):
game winning streak going in the end of two thousand
twenty two. They got to a place where I think
a lot of people doubted they could get to. And
that is fair. I mean to look at everything, the
litany that Kevin Durant went through, he named everything that
happened to them in two after the game the other night,
and to think that they can go through all of
that and finish the year with the second bascher record

(05:00):
the NBA, with the longest winning streak in the n
b A and doing it in a way that is
easily replicable. You can't tell the story of this year
without talking about Jacques Baun and what he's been able
to do since taking over as the head coach. Jacques

(05:20):
talks about keeping things simple, simplifying things, and that may
be oversimplifying what he's been able to do. See the
thing I know about Jacque Vaughan, and I've learned this
over the years and knowing him going back to his
time when he was a player. And by the way,
Jacque Vaughan was on that team back in the old
five oh six NET team that one fourteen in a row.

(05:44):
So this winning streak the longest since the team that
Jack Von played on back in the old five or
six season for the Nets. But Jack Bun has established roles,
he has not tried to interject too much of himself
into this. He's made it about the players and he's
done what coaches are really supposed to do. The time.

(06:08):
You know, you can talk about excess and oh is
all you want? Coaching is about motivating people to do
their best, and for whatever reason, Jacque BoNT has been
able to do that. You know, I get to spend
five ten minutes before every game with Jacque Blond, do
an interview, exclusive interview one on one with him that

(06:28):
you'd hear before every game on our pregame show on
radio on w f a M. Or if you want
to tune in on the app Brooklyn nets app hit
listen usually right around seven or seven thirty game every night.
You'd saw on there, you can hear it now. The
thing that I have taken away from those interviews with
Jacque Bond is that I have to be focused and

(06:51):
ready because Jacques does everything with a purpose. You know,
when you see him walk around the building, he's never answering.
Jock doesn't salt anywhere. He moves with a purpose. He's
got somewhere to be, somewhere to go, something to do,
and when he answers questions, even you see this from
he answers the media. First of all, there's always a

(07:14):
smile on his face, but he is direct. He doesn't
meaner around the question. He is clear and concise. So
you've got to be ready. You've got to listen to him,
make sure if there's a question that now comes about
from his answer, you want to follow up, but you
have to have the next question ready to go because

(07:34):
it's a fast paced interview. And I love that he
makes me be better. He makes me be more focused.
And when it's over, when my interaction with him for
the day is done, I am immediately in a better mood.
He's got me motivated. Jack Vaughn has done a terrific

(07:56):
job as the head coach of this team in this
short period of time. And we'll see even keep going.
We know there's a lot of basketball left, but they
have raised the bar. Going into our guest today is
Mike Prata. He is the author of a book called
Snaked Out, How the NBA's three point line changed everything

(08:17):
you thought you knew about basketball. Mike was a former
writer and editor at sp Nation in their national NBA coverage.
Now he's a writer and editor for the NBA coverage
at The Athletic and he wrote this book. And it's
such a great conversation starter, this book because it leads

(08:39):
you into so many different areas that we can talk
about the revolution that happened when the NBA decided to
paint that two inch thick line in an arc around
the half court, and how it completely changed the way
multibillion dollar teams operate, the way they coach, the way

(09:03):
they play, the kind of players that they try to find.
It completely changed who can play in the NBA, who
can thrive in the NBA. It has evolved, and it
has evolved at a rapid pace. We're gonna talked with
Mike all about that. We'll get into a lot of
interesting discussion. Could have talked for hours. We land about

(09:23):
forty five minutes, So we'll have that conversation coming up,
and then stay tuned afterwards. Um, he does talk about
some things personally, you know what made him write the
book and it took a kind of poignant turn towards
the end. And then I'll have some thoughts about that
and everything else on our little I call the post
game show. This is like the pregame show, and then

(09:44):
the the interview is like the game. And then I'll
come on for the the post game show. So stay
tuned for that. Alright, our first episode of the Voice
of the Nets podcast fore with Mike Prata off or
up spaced out. It's next, right, here on the Voice
of the net So Mike as A as A as

(10:09):
a play by play guy, I'm a stickler for pronunciations,
so I appreciate that in your Twitter bio you have
how to say your name Prata, not to be confused
with the design company product. It's spelled the same way.
I thought maybe you were an heir to the fortune,
but but now I see you pronounced the name differently,

(10:31):
just an ordinary commoner. Uh yeah, enough people had messed
up the name, very understandably because why would you pronounce
it preda if it was spelled up? But you know,
why would anybody know? But I just was like, all
right at this point, like I just gotta put it
out there. So just to be clear, you're not part
You're not an heir to the to the product fortune,

(10:53):
not officially, I'm not. Well, maybe someone will discover will
pick up your new book, which is called Spaced Out.
Have the NBA's three point line changed everything you thought
you knew about basketball? So let's let's jump in here
because it's such a great book in terms of there's
so many ways you can go and it starts sparks

(11:14):
so much conversation. Um your premise what do you what
do you feel people think they knew about basketball? Well,
I think that people you know, the way I explained
is that imagine I mean, this is literally what happened.
You have ten players who play in a surface right,

(11:35):
that's how many players in a typical half court sequence
before this three point revolution, if they were shooting from
at furthest twenty right on top of the line, the
surface area of what those ten people cover is twenty
two ise is by fifty I guess right now, imagine

(11:57):
that you said we're gonna now extend that twenty two
border to thirty five to forty because of how far
away people are shooting, and how quickly people are shooting,
how fast the game is, all of that. But then
you didn't add more players to fill that space, right,
he said, Okay, now these ten players have to fill
that space instead. It's almost one and a half to

(12:19):
two times is big to me. I think what's sort
of the obvious, almost plain sight point that's overlooked is
they're going to behave differently. If they want to try
to cover all those spaces, They're going to move differently.
They're going to dribble differently, they're going to align differently.
It's as if like your gym teacher and capture the flag,
says oh, by the way, the the border now extends

(12:42):
out past that tree and you now have to run
around to it. So to me, like that was kind
of what was the very simple thing that was missing.
And if that's the case, and if literally you're playing
on a different surface, on a different size surface, you
have to to me question everything we thought we knew.
You know, do we still want to move and align

(13:03):
ourselves and put the ball in certain places? Why would
we do it in the same way when we have
to do it on this bigger court and I have
my arms? Is here this big instead of this big?
So to me, that's sort of what I think needed
to be relearned. And that doesn't necessarily mean that what
was right before is wrong now, But I think we
just sort of had to reconsider it, you know what

(13:24):
I mean? Yeah, and it changed who who gets to
play the game, you know, I mean, I know we'll
go back to the origin of it, and you touch
on this in the book, But um, I talked about
this a couple of episodes ago when we had Brian Taylor,
the former nets A B a All Star who ended
up being the first guy to ever lead the NBA

(13:45):
in three point field goals made UM. But we talked
about how the origin of the line was in the
old UM before the A B. A. A. Sapperstein had
started a league, the guy who started the Harlem Globetrotters,
right had started a league because he thought it was
just getting to the game. The NBA game was just

(14:05):
monsters beheem its were ruling and there was no room
for small skilled players right there. What was that was
the impetus I guess for the evolution of the three
point line? Yeah, you know what, he didn't goes back
further than that. There's a guy named Howard Hobson who
was the coach Jet I believe Oregon, UH, and he
coached other places UM, and he had experiment with a

(14:28):
three point line in the nineteen forties, UH in a scrimmage.
And obviously I've never made it to the main stream,
but to the point that you're making with sort of
opening the game up and allowing more people to play.
The late seventies were very much defined by in the
NBA as physicality punches. Kermit, the Kermit Washington incident with

(14:52):
Janovich was was around that time. The playoffs were just
these slug fests. So Howard Hobson, who at this point
in the late seven eases, you know, nearing the end
of his career in life, writes a letter to Larry
Brian and says, you know, do you want to stop
fighting in your league that is giving you such a
bad rep You have to create a three point line
to get people out. He said, if everybody is within

(15:14):
this tiny radius, it's only natural that they're going to
fight each other. And I had just coming across that letter,
I was like, that dude got it. However, many years
before people got it now. And so even going all
the way back then to open the game up and
provide a different type of player to play, you don't
have to be this big, physical bruiser that goes all

(15:36):
the way back to the seventies. And yeah, I mean
that that's exactly what it did. It just totally changed
what made what type of player couldn't be involved in.
At the time, smaller players were the ones that were
kind of entered into the league, and that happened in
the NBA as well. But now, what's so crazy, No,
how is that now the bigger guys play like smaller guys.
It's almost like the bigger guys have taken over the

(15:58):
smaller guy's skills. Yeah, and that's changed. Well, it's probably
the way guys have grown up and watching the game
the way it is now. We'll get into that. I
want to get into you know, Steph Curry, and of
course he's a huge part of this whole thing. But
just going back again to the be the origin of it.
I know, the in the A B A had it
the three point line, but then when the a BA

(16:19):
emerged with the NBA, there was still a reluctance to
go to the three point line. It took a few years.
What finally made the NBA, I know it probably touched
a little bit you talked about just now. But what
made the NBA finally relent and go to a three
point line? I think a lot of it was. I mean,
you call it reluctance. I'd call it something stronger than

(16:40):
reluctantce I'd call it outright hostility from a lot of
the top you know people in the NBA. You know,
I can imagine you take, you bought, you you beat
this league. The A B A. They emerged with you
you're the big dogs, and then now you have to
take their thing. Like I can imagine the cognitive dissidence
there that uh it. But I think the physic the

(17:02):
series were really poorly rated, you know, the finals, the
TV ratings. There was just this sort of there's too
much fighting, this kind of at a certain point like
something had to be done. This was again remember pre
Larry Johnson, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, also pre Larry Johnson
who made it pretty huge three at one point for

(17:24):
the Knicks where we will remember but yeah, uh yeah,
he had a couple one I know you, I know
the one you're talking about. But yeah, so I think
at the time that was just like we've got to
try this, We've got to see what it's like. And
what's what's really amazing to me is this goes through
the border governors fifteen to seven, so it passed by
one vote. So this was hardly like kind of because

(17:47):
it needed two thirst for Jordan's so it was hardly
like kind of this everybody is on board with this thing.
And then the preseason of that year, guys like Jerry Colangelo,
who was on the rules committee at the time, and
other people are like, relax, it's not going to change
the game. This thing. We just gotta try this thing out.
And can you imagine like sort of fighting so hard

(18:07):
to get something linked this through and then your first
reaction once you finally get it is you've got to
calm down the naysayers. To me, that explains so much
of why it took so long for it to be adopted,
you know. But to answer to your question, I think
it's just a reach the point where they had to
do something to juice up the game. It was just
getting the TV ratings were too bad and it's the
same thing that happened to USand of one with the

(18:27):
illegal defense. For at a certain point you just had
to do something different. Well, I think, and you're talking
about in the book too about I think it was
the finals that year before right was particularly rough, the
last couple yet because it was both Seattle vers Washington
guy so again that the big all crammed into the paint.
It creates this hostility and they were trying to get

(18:50):
that out of the game obviously, but you know, you
you the the evil who shan Then from there on
in and we know Chris Ford makes the first three.
I about this in Brian Taylor. You know, he led
the league with ninety the first year that it was implemented,
And we were discussing this at the time. Uh, it
was twenty five games into the NBA season this year,

(19:12):
and I said to Brian, I said, you know that
that wouldn't even lead the league games into the season
right now, I think at the time we're talking about that,
step Carry already had a hundred and seventeen before he
got hurt this year. Um, so it's jumped. I mean
in leaps and bounds, but really even in the last decade,
it's gone completely, it's jumped. What do you think, you know,

(19:36):
we've had such acceleration in the pace of it. Is
that just compounding interest kind of at this point? Yeah,
you know, And and Similars, this is what the whole
the whole book really zeros in on. Why did happened
in two thousand and fourteen or so. I mean, I
think you look at the Warriors three point shooting numbers,
they would be I think near the bottom of the

(19:58):
league from the first year they win the tie if
they came in this now. And I think there are
a number of things that happened. I mean, in some
ways this is a chain reaction, but all of them
lead to in my mind, there is using the three
point line where it's like, okay, it's here for us,
Like if we want to play inside, I use this
as a weapon, stand on top of it. And then

(20:18):
there's oh this the fear of this thing can make
it easier to score inside. And if we just like
play up tempo and show a willingness to shoot a
lot of them, not only is it better mathematically, so
you have that sort of one side of it's sort
of slamming together, you also just create this like whiplash
frenzy that just makes every other shot easier. And I

(20:41):
think it took the Warriors doing what they did to
figure that out. And then on the other side, you
took the rockets and the analytics movement to say, well
three is greater than two. You slam those two things together.
You emerge it with some of these other movements that
have kind of happened, you know, they legal defense role
going in two thousand one, the hand checking, the positional revolution.

(21:03):
It's kind of a chain reaction. Um, but I think
that to me, like the the chaos element is what
really drove it over the top. And you know, there
a lot of human inventions go gradual growth, gradual growth,
gradual growth, spike, So in some ways the three pointer
is not a huge exception. But to me, just the

(21:25):
spike is the part that I think people don't even
appreciate even now. And that was what the impetus of
the book was. Is it really is like like two
thousand and fourteen on, this is very recent we have.
We're in a very crazy rapid amount of change period
in the NBA right now, and more so than I
think ever since the shot clock that we ever had

(21:47):
a game that's changed this tremendously. You make a great
point about the threat of it. You know, it's when
you know, uh, happy days, how how how old a
guy you are, but you know the happy days. I
remember there was an episode where the Fonds just trying
to teach Richie how to be tough, you know if
you remember that, and and gives him all these little pointers,

(22:10):
you know, and then Richie tries it out, and the
guy doesn't back down, and he goes back to punds,
I did all the stuff you told me. He goes,
I forgot something. You're you're at one point you had
to have hit somebody, and he's like, it's a very
important point. You didn't mention their fonds. And it's like,
you've got the threat of the three point line. You've
got to be able to make threes. And I feel like, maybe,

(22:32):
guy kid, you know, younger guys growing up in this
generation that have been influenced by Steph Curry, they've been
working on that shot and maybe shooting it better than
anyone in the history of the game. Guys are just
better at it, and the fact that they're better at
it leads to them utilizing it more. You've got to

(22:53):
be able to make them to have it be a threat.
But what's what's still fascinating about that is that the
actual three point percentage the league wide, really since the
three point for the last years has basically just been
pretty flat. If you just look at just the bubble
the post bubble year, it went up a little bit

(23:13):
because I think of empty arenas, that's what a lot
of players were saying, But overall, generally, if you look
at I forget what the league averages right now, I
think it's like thirty five percent um. It was about
thirty five percent five years ago too. But what's happened
is that obviously the degree of difficulty of all those
shots has gotten way up. So what I think speaks

(23:36):
to your point is that if they're shooting thirty five on, okay,
nobody's actually guarding me out here, this one guy out here,
I catch a kickout pass, I take like a one
to step in and it takes a while and I
sort of launched it, and then there's thirty five percent
on running this quick, drible handoff with this guy. Like

(23:56):
let's just say I was just for the next like
Roy's O'Neil as someone who in the past would have
probably just been like a spot up shooter. You duck
under the screen. Royce O'Neill is pulling up that shot.
He's maybe hitting well this series hitting it probably more
than but but on that shot, you know. And I
think the other thing too is if you do it
a lot, and I think there's a little big psychology

(24:19):
element as well, you do it a lot. I talk
about Marcus Smart is like my key example of this
in the book. Marcus Smart's percentages like around for his career.
But he'll get hot and he'll keep going and he'll
keep acting like he's a hot shooter. And after if
you do that enough times, what sticks in the memory
of the defender is, oh, he can make the shot,

(24:42):
rather than he's gonna miss it most of the time,
and that causes them to play him differently. But you
can only get to that point if you're actually shooting
a lot of them. Well, a couple of things to
to just go back on and touch on what you
just said it. I think, for um, what's interesting about
a lot of times with the three point shot is
that it can be such a momentum changer, you know,

(25:04):
and you're talking about empty arenas well, when you're in
a full arena. Sometimes if yeah, Marcus marts not he's
a three point shooter, but he's a clutch three point
he's not afraid of the moment, and he's not afraid
to take that shot in the moment, and when he does, man,
the whole place just erupts and that could affect the
next five minutes of the game, you know, or a
mist the same way can be deflating. And I also

(25:26):
think the other part of it is that not every
three pointer is created equal. You know, they're the corner
three is easier than you know, shorter than the other ones.
And sometimes I've always felt like the three point shot
is a barometer of how well your offense is playing
because the higher percentages, Yeah, like the higher percentages, the
chances are the balls moving better. You know, some guys

(25:49):
are are catching shoot guys. Some guys can walk up
the floor into it. But sometimes with the ball is
moving and popping, guys are getting more open shots, so
they'll have a higher percentage. And it's not just that well,
this guy are better three point you don't know, it's
a healthier offense. Yeah, And I think it's all connected.
I talk about in the book that's the rise of
the point five mentality, which is something that Gregg Popovich

(26:10):
and the Spurs we really used to win their championship. Shooting,
move it, drive it in point five, make a decision. Yep,
that's what That's what it is and what happens that
Mike d'An stoni has a kind of phrases the ball
finds energy. Um, that's another one of his What sort
of happens is that all kind of plays into each
other because if you're constantly moving, passing, shooting quickly, you're

(26:33):
embracing chaos rather than hiding from it. And that changes
the way that the defense guards you. That changes the
rhythm you're in when you shoot them. And I think
that was the real lesson that people realize is that, Okay,
maybe we don't literally shoot the ball better if we're
moving it just like a percentage, but it just feels
like we're kind of doing so many things quickly and

(26:54):
the defense can't keep up. But in order to kind
of have that, you have to be able to have
a little crazier in you to shoot the ball really fast,
you kind of move it quickly. And that and and
what's I also talking about how I think that changes
the way players shot motions. Look, you know, what does
it mean if you need to get awful lot of
twenty five footers, you can't shoot them the way you

(27:15):
used to. You got to kind of get into your
shot quicker that you get to do you dip. Now
you see shooters down and they'll catch the ball and
they'll keep it up high while they just put their
their their knees down. All of it is just designed,
I think, to kind of create this. The overarching theme
is let's embrace chaos instead of trying to control it.
Let's play free and flow. That to me is what

(27:38):
this air is really all about, and how that is
just flipped the game of basketball it's head. There was
in the book you talked about a dichotomy. Uh, the
two teams that probably people think of in recent years
when it comes to the three point shot. Obviously the
Golden State Warriors and the Slash Drosion what they've been
able to do. But then you have the Rockets, and

(27:58):
you mentioned that Tony went. I mean, they broke all
kinds of records and the three point shot, but they
kind of approached it in a different way and it
kind of came to a head when they met in
the Western Conference finals. Could you speak to to what
you were getting at with that. Yeah. Yeah, I call
it a holy war because it's like two sects of

(28:20):
the same religion. In my head, where they come from
the d'antoni's sons family tree. D'Antoni obviously goes off to
the Rockets, but the Warriors have a lot of sons
people as well. The Warriors and this is a bit
of an oversimplification, but I think it's a helpful one
to think about how they affected the rest of the league.
The Warriors are much more of the movement art. You know,

(28:43):
we're doing this to whip you into a frenzy division.
Um call the prodissism or something or whatever if you
want to kind of extend the analogy. The Rockets were
much more industrious about It's like, hey, man, three these
greater than two, Like why are we takes me two?
That are this percentage? And then what ends up happening
is if we would take more threes, we just we

(29:05):
literally stand further away, we create more space. It's much
more of this kind of prosaic approach. They're both right.
They were both part of the philosophy that like kind
of was where the Suns came in and that has
affected the whole league. But they hated each other for
it because they were going they felt like they were
like rivals going about it and like almost a sacrilegious way.

(29:28):
You listen to how the Warriors talked about how Houston
played with their isolation ball, it almost feels like they're saying,
that's sacrilegious to what we're trying to do. Yeah, I
mean it was a little like, uh, you know, like um,
I always breaking back to music, but like grunge, it
would be like people pitting Nirvana against Pearl Jam. You know,
it was the same, but it was different. And it

(29:50):
comes to have when they played each other in the
in the in the Western Conference Finals that year. And
what was interesting about it, into your point, is the
Rockets were kind of rigid in their approach and they
go on that stretch where they missed like twenty seven
straight and there was no and there was no in
between for that, whereas the Warriors. You said that it

(30:11):
was yes, we want to take a lot of threes,
but it's more of that's just a result of us
creating the chaos if we had to, though, we can
play a mid range game. And I think sometimes in
the postseason, like over the course of a year, you
look statistically, yes, it's it's uh an analytics approach, and
that will work, but sometimes in the playoffs it boils

(30:32):
down to a few possessions or a quarter and you've
gotta be a little more flexible. I think to have
that thing, and I think that flexibility is what ultimately
the Warriors multi champions and maybe Houston was just the
king of the regular season. Yeah, you know, I think
that's a that's a that's certainly true. I mean, I
think that there's no question that you need it's better

(30:54):
to look at it as an art. And I think
that in general, the Warriors didn't just win on the scoreboard,
they also on stylistically. I think there are more teams
today you play like them than you play like Houston.
But I also think that one you needed, you know,
Houston to really push the envelope to kind of you
need both sides of it. The Warriors moderate enough to win,

(31:17):
but they would the rest of the league wouldn't have
thrust forward without Houston being like, let's take this to
the logical extreme. Number two. Obviously they were close to winning.
That series could have gone either way. Maybe if Chris
Paul plays. What I think is most fascinating about it
is listening to the Warriors talk about it the year
after and say what you're saying, but also sort of

(31:41):
making it more specific to the Rockets. It's like, you know,
three years ago, you guys were the revolutionaries. Now you're like,
oh no, no, no, they're to you just too far.
To me, that illustrated just how quickly this happened and
how fast it wasn't what I think is actually happening
this year. Is what's interesting is that two point shooting
is like as among the yes it's ever been in

(32:01):
Leak history. Offense is really going up. What I think
more people have realized to your point is that if
we present all these threats, we make every shot easier.
So as more people align their defenses to garden the three,
we're taking more of those mid range shots that were
stepping into them. We're starting far away, we're stepping into them.
We're throwing the ball to the post on ducans really quickly.

(32:25):
You know, when you switch and it's harder for you
to help because you're all spread out. And so two
point shooting is on the rise as well. So this
is almost the peak version of offense this year. Is
this where everybody can kind of do everything well you
know a lot of times, I think and this had
something thing to do with Darryl morri and Houston and
his analytics approach and and then they were taking all
these threes. Is that, um, the idea of analytics got

(32:49):
linked to three point shooting. Analytics just means it's it's stats,
it's percentages, it's playing the best percentages. And you know
when you look at the net. I mean Kyrie Irving
when he can get to his spot, which is is
pretty much every time he has the ball. When Kevin
Durant gets to his spot, which is every time he

(33:11):
gets the ball. Their mid range shot is a high
analytic shot because it's a high percentage shot. Doesn't mean
you gotta step back to the three. But then it
also makes it easier for Joe Harris to make his
best shot, which is the three. It makes it easy
for Royce. How you know, Russ O'Neil, the guy has
ten ft of free space and from him every time

(33:32):
he's going to shoot the three because of those guys.
So it really the there is room for the mid
range became kind of like a you know, an old word.
It was nostalgic, but no, it just means a high
percentage shot for some guys. The mid range shot is
a good shot. Yeah, I think what actually happened, which
is interesting is you know in the nineties, back in
the day that you sort of had the three point

(33:53):
shot was like reserved for the specialists, right, if you
were really good at it, you could shoot it. Today
the mid rate shot is kind of that and the
three point shot is what's the role players? So in
a weird way, like I think this this conversation got
a little the mid race conversation got a little blown
up because what was really happening is you were taking
all the shots that like kind of your Royce o'neils

(34:15):
used to take from sixteen feet and you said, roycenil,
just take those from three. Kevin Durant shot Diet, Kyrie
Irving shot Diet, the margin Rosen shot Diet. That type
of stuff wasn't really changing. It just was re reorganizing
the alignment of the floor. And that takes us all
the way back to why I love this. I really
liked this style basketball personally. You know, there are a

(34:35):
lot that don't. To me. What I love about it
is that you have to present a shape. I just
love seeing the way the shape of a possession where
all five players have to be playing off each other.
Where Durant, like you said, duran'st ability to shoot from
sixteen feet over anybody is enhanced by Joe Harris, this

(34:55):
ability to shoot from twenty five ft, which is also
then enhanced by Kevin Like there's a symbiotic nature to it,
and it's about the whole. And I think what the
league is starting to figure out really this year. And
that's why I think off this is really high. It's
just they have the perfect balance of how to create
that shape to make everybody better this year. You use
the word shape, and it's the first time I hear

(35:17):
you use you know, people use it in terms of basketball.
You think of soccer. You know, shape, right, there's what
what shape are they going to be in here? Um?
And it it's it's very visual of a view of
people connected and connect those dots and it makes a
certain form um And they call soccer the beautiful game.
And I think when you look at what the NBA

(35:38):
has tried to done open do over the years in
enhancing the end. Let's face it, the the n b
A is a it's an entertainment piece. You want it
to be the most entertaining thing you can do. It's
a multi billion dollar operations. So you know they've taken
things out like the hand check, like the you know,
even the even just bumping guy that are moving through

(36:01):
the lane. They want to make free flowing game to
make it more entertaining. Um. The three point shot maybe
started that you mentioned You're you're a fan of this style,
do you think we're at the most entertaining peak of

(36:22):
the game, and what are the arguments against it right now?
I think where people think need to be changed. I
think the tricky thing, of course, is an entertainment is
an entirely subjective point of view that is enhanced by
when you grew up, you know, and what your tastes are. Um.
I mean, obviously there's definitely um some backlash show how

(36:45):
it's just impossible to defend anymore. And so the question
is what is twenty points me in these days? My
argument to counter that has always been that's all anchored.
One that's so anchored in what the past was, right,
So just if it was in reverse, if we like

(37:05):
kind of became more defensive, we would be saying, I
don't know how that makes sense at ninety points, you
know what I mean. So we're anchored by what was
previously happening. And two, the one point I try to
make in this book, and again I'm not advocating for
like this is how it has to be, because I
know it. It's in the eye to beholder. I happen
to like it, but I also understand but to me.

(37:26):
What's important to notice. This is the kind of game
James James N. Smith kind of wanted in a lot
of ways. If you read how Nasmith conceived a basketball,
he conceived of it as an up and down there
is no defense, there is no offense, there are no coaches.
It's free flowing, fast break style open. He hated how

(37:46):
kind of goonish the game had started to become in
his mind in the nineteen thirties. Obviously it was way
more goonish than it is. It wasn't the nineties. So like,
I don't know how he would have felt about the
nineties or two thousand's, but you know, this is sort
of kind of the game that he wanted, and I
would I think there's certainly some things that could be fixed. Um.

(38:08):
I think it's a lot harder to follow, frankly than
it used to be, where if you had no illegal defense,
it was just it's easy to throw the ball to
one on one and like all your eyes could focus
on the one on one matchup. Now I find my
eyes are going like all over the place trying to
track everything. Um, so it's hard to follow. So from
that perspective, it's hard to be entertained by something that's

(38:29):
kind of moving too quickly, I suppose. But to me,
I think, like this, it makes sense that we're using
the whole court where they have diverse style play in
terms of the types of players we haven't mean, isn't
it amazing that Janice and Chris Paul can both succeed
in this sport right designed incident Victor weimbin Yama. Yeah, yeah,

(38:54):
and because and you know, I know we don't have
all the time, but we get into, you know, the
whole idea of position with basketball, and you know how
I know you bristle at that term a little bit
where you know, there really is like it's it's um.
You know, basketball is the kind of thing it's it's
like jazz. You know we were talking about. Football is
a symphony where everything's got to be exact and precise.
Basketball is more free flowing in jazz. And yes, a

(39:16):
guy can be um. You know, really we call them
as some structure. This guy is a center because he's
seven foot but when he's handling the ball at the
top of the key, he's really a point guard at
that moment. It's like if a running back starts out
in the backfield, but he motions out as a white out.
He's now a wide receiver, you know. So it depends
on where you are on the floor. Kevin Durant's got
on the block while he's acting like a center, but

(39:39):
he was bringing the ball up the floor is a
point guard, you know. So really that's kind of what
you think of. But I just want to talk about
the you mentioned the chaos and what Nay Smith kind
of thought of this game that would go back at
fourth and be a little wild and it's entertaining that way.
I always thought that Rick Patino didn't get enough credit
for that. When you think about his time at Providence.

(40:00):
He was the first guy that was the first time
I really heard the math, like, no, we're gonna shoot
a lot of threes because they're worth more and we
could shoot a lower percentage from three and score more
points than if we shot a higher percentage from two.
And remember those two years he went to the Knicks,
and I remember being a guy I was like eighteen
nineteen years old, and I used to go to the
garden before the pot Riley days and they're filling the garden.

(40:20):
There was a half empty crowd there, but they were playing.
You know, they had the bomb squad and Mark Jackson
and Trent Tucker and that crew. We're making threes, and
but that was predicated on pressure defense, you know, like
they were they were pressing for forty eight minutes to
try and get the game a little wild. And I mean,
you know, when Petino was there, they doubled twice the

(40:41):
franchise record for threes in the early eighties, and that's
before D'Antoni and that whole crew. Yeah, you know, there
are a lot of people that I mean, one of
the things that's tough about writing a book like this
is that you're in nettall begin to leave innovators about you.
You have to you have to. Yeah, you know, they're
just you know, there's so many Pitsino I was. I

(41:03):
wish I had been able to write more about the Sonics,
about Kloppenberg and George carl with their pressure defense and
their S O S scheme. I thought that was very
ahead of its time. I look at teams like the Raptors,
I see the Sonics. Would have been great to write
more about rudysn Jona Fish's rockets that were in the title.
It would have been really cool to write, you know,

(41:24):
even go the next one, maybe the next, maybe the
next one. Stan Van Gundy in the Stretch for Experiment
with the Magic that was one that kind of got
a little bit short. Threat The Kings of Chris Weber
uh Make Mike Bibby and the Princeton offense that they
ran in the early two thousand's, That's ran that too
with Eddie Jordan and Jason Kidd. They run a Princeton

(41:45):
half court offense. They did. Yeah, And I grew up
on those Wizards teams with Gilbert Arina's and they ran
that stuff too when Eddie Jordan was the coach and
looking at like like I mean even going all the
way back to you know, I talked about this guy
John mcclendendon who was at Kansas undergrad and he coached

(42:08):
a number of college teams, use HBCU teams. He has
this like fast break style where it's like, oh my god,
this is exactly what Dan Turty was doing in so
it's just the thing. It's just so sometimes you just
gotta be the right person at the right time. And
I sort of just felt like it's not like D'Antoni

(42:29):
is or the Sons or any of the other key members.
Don Nelson was very prominently mentioned in the book, and
then the other key figures were necessarily the first, but
they were the first at the right time when the
rest of the world was ready to hear it. That's
like the premise of the Malcolm Gladwell book Tipping Point.
You know some things didn't you know, we're around, but

(42:51):
didn't really hit it, and then you know there's one
influencer that stumbled on something and boom, it just you know,
goes up immensely. Um, I know a lot of things
I would love you know, you mentioned too about how
you know we mentioned bomb Squad with Mark Jackson. Ironically,
you know, he was the coach of the Warriors when
the Slash Brothers first showed up, and they kind of
got rid of him because they thought he was too
rigid as a coach offensively right, And yeah, to me,

(43:16):
that just illustrats just how quickly this has changed. Like, yeah,
that's the thing I think people when I say when
I changed everything you're thought to you about basketball, that
like kind of flip it up, you know that I
had there. It's great though, it gets you, It gets
it gets you talking it's a great conversation starter, you know.

(43:38):
Just before Mike, I let you go, though, I want
to touch on you just personally. So this is the
first time, just the first book. Now you're you're you're
an editor, you're an NBA writer for a long time,
you know, but this is the first book you wrote.
How did you find the experience of writing a book
that's hard? Very hard? Um? I was. It's it's just

(43:59):
such a My experience is very atypical, uh, of even
book writers. You know. I was an editor at est
Nation for ten years, running her all that, all that,
so I did some writing on the side, obviously breaking
down film and all that sort of stuff. I have furloughed,
you know, right before the pandemic, Right at the start

(44:19):
of the pandemic. The day I got that furlough, Triumph
asked me if they wanted to write a book about
XS and ohs, and I was like, well that seems
really intimidating. Um so I'm the authority, and so the
idea evolved. But I had no intention of writing this
book at all. I had no idea what I was
gonna do. So it was while I was kind of

(44:39):
looking around for the next opportunity for the next two years.
That was what I did for this is like and
the book I turned in like two so it was
like two years of research two years is just honestly,
the hardest part was just figuring out the scope ultimately,
just what can I include? Because you can include everything,
Like what is the story I wanted to tell exactly?

(45:02):
That was the hardest part. More a narrow down your focus.
Sometimes the easier it is to do it. Yeah, yeah,
that was Did you want to write another one like it?
What was the experience? Did it make you want to
do it or not want to do it again? You
asked me this one. I don't think I would want
to do this again. You're asking me this today. I'm like, yeah,
let's do this again if you find it or something. Yeah, yeah,

(45:25):
that part I think is what most writers would tell you.
But um, you know, it's just I'm not. I had
no idea like how to write for a book, you know,
and so anybody help you out with it? I had,
you know, I had editors like other authors that friends
yours in the business that gave you good advice. I

(45:46):
had a few that gave me good advice. Um, I
want to shout out Jake Fisher uh in particular, Seth
part Now, Chris Harring was really helpful at different points.
Mere and Fader was helpful at different points. Alex long
Um all the folks that he had worked with in
the past. But I started took the approach of this
has got to be just a really long blog post,

(46:09):
and that sometimes worked and sometimes it didn't. It just
helped me sort of wrap my head around it. Umstay,
we'll look at it. What what Obviously you love the
n b A and you love the game of basketball,
or you could never have written a book of this
kind of scope. Um, what made you fall in love
with the NBA the time? You know, I'm gonna get

(46:29):
a little sentimentally here. This was like a father's son
activity for us growing up. When I was a kid,
my dad was a huge Celtics fan. I'm from d C. Area,
but he used to take me to the Washington bullet
Skames that I was growing up. That was around the
time of the Capitals, the last days of the Capital Center.
Chris Webber, Juwan Howard teams. They're uh, never quite so good,

(46:52):
but they're always great tickets availab But we used to
go just the two of us, and that was sort
of like our thing. Um. And then my dad had
actually passed away when I was in high school in
a single car accident. Was just very sudden. Um. And
in some ways, I think and I dedicated the book
to him. So this is not like a total secret,
but I think I'm just sort of living out that

(47:15):
childhood memory as much as I can. In some ways,
I've just been lucky to have these opportunities to try
to do that. Um. I don't know. I had thought
about that question a lot, like kind of what what
made you want to do this? And I think that's
a big part of it. Journalism in college, you know,
I wanted to get into the industry. I started Bullets

(47:36):
Forever the Espionation Wizard's blog covered them for a number
of years of being a John Wells's career and you know,
I really like doing it. But I think ultimately, at
the end of the day, I think it was it's
a father's son journey that I'm trying to keep that
memory alive in some ways, you know, it was we
just passed the twenty year marks since he passed, so
that's a great crazy time and that's so much of

(47:58):
what sports is. You know, it's nostalgia and it's it's reminded.
It's that time, father's son time that reminds you of
I mean, there's a million stories like that. UM, and
then inspires you to to go out and do this. UM.
I always I always end this, and I know you know, UM,
I wouldn't want to deny you this opportunity, but all
my guests on the on the program, I I end

(48:18):
this by UM because I really I'm interested in in
the people behind these things that we do. And uh,
something that the Jim Balvano speech at the SPS has
always been a a huge influence on me over the years.
And you know he mentioned that there's three things to
do to have a full day out. If you recall that,

(48:40):
he said, you know you want to laugh, think, and
cry every day to have a full day. So, um,
what makes Mike pray to laugh? You're in the xs
and ohs and you're and you're I know it's not
like you know, uh, pick and roll defense isn't making you,
but sometimes such thinking be certain guys try to play it.

(49:02):
You can make you laugh. Yeah, but what makes what
or what or who or something that makes you laugh. Well,
the the way the nets are pointing to pick a
role defense early in the year that um, I had
a five year old, the two year old, beautiful wife.
They make me laugh all the time. They're just hilarious. There.
They're at the stage where they're you know, they're saying

(49:23):
things that just to make to crack themselves up, that
are really silly. Um they make me laugh every day.
And you know, our wife makes me me laugh all
the time just with her support. Um. You know, I
honestly wish that there were more things that made me cry.
Um Well, I was gonna say, like it made me.
It made me start to get emotional just hearing your

(49:44):
story about you and your dad. You know, like, I
think that that appreciate that's something that and it's not
like cry water works kind of thing. It's just sort
of like it it moves your emotions. Two tears and
that that did it for me. Today. I can cross
that off my my list today I had my emotions
moved to that point. Yeah. You know, honestly, what does

(50:06):
make me maybe not cry, but make me feel emotional starting?
I think, and I think something that connects both to
basketball and This is just seeing like a group of
people be more than what the some of their parts
are just come together to achieve something. I like to
say this a lot one plus one equals more than

(50:26):
two for them, you know, just and that, whether it's
been basketball, whether that's at my current job where you know,
all the editors are helping each other out and writers
are sharing ideas and you really nail that piece. You know,
one of the folks I edit is Tim Kato and
Dallas and you just had an amazing twenty four hours
covering Luca don Cheches you know, sixty point game and

(50:48):
just seeing that come together. That that really makes me
feel things to see just kind of people working together
to kind of do something beyond their means, whether pall, Yeah,
it's small things done by regular people when you combine
them can change lives, just like just like a line

(51:09):
painted on the floor can change the game of basketball
for forever. Um. You know, I always the think part
of this is always the outside Barkley Center. There's the oculus,
you know, the this this spiraling video board. But so
many people see it because it comes right there. You
come out of the subway, you see it. You're going
to the arene you see it. Um, if you could

(51:31):
put anything up there for people to think about, what
do you think it would be? Wow, that's a anything
in the world. I mean, there's like almost too many
things I want them to think about. You. I've given
you too larger scope. You know. I'm reading a book
now at the history of what's it called money? The

(51:51):
The through History of made up Thing I Forget, I think,
by Jacob Goldstein. There's just so much in there about like,
this thing that's so fundamental to our lives is just
a human It's really just a human construct. As long
as everybody believes in it, it's valuable, and as long
as it when you stop believing in whatever form of

(52:12):
money is money, that's when things collapse. And to me,
I don't know, I can't really like put that up
on the board, I guess exactly, But just just got
a picture of the book. I've been thinking a lot
about that concept and how you know, everything that we
think is true in this world is only true because
people come together to agree that it's true. So what

(52:32):
happens when that thing that we thought is true is
either not true or as human made, or is threatened?
How to how do people respond to that? In some ways,
that's the story of the Three point Revolution too. So
that's what I've been thinking about recently, the power of
belief m hmm. Yeah, and more importantly, the power of
one belief stops. When do we stop believing? And how

(52:55):
does that change everything? And that could eventually come about
what we're talking about in the n b A. You know,
like without any kind of rule changes or anything, we
could see it start to reverse. Yeah, no, but like bigger,
Like you mentioned so many guys that are growing up
in this generation. We're now seeing these freaks like Victor

(53:18):
wem Ba Yama at seven foot whatever, seven hundred is
moving and playing like Seth Curry because he grew up
ball handling, shooting, and you're gonna get these kind of
players that it's hard to stop now. It's it's true,
it is it is wild. I mean, do we ever

(53:38):
reach the point where we say, not a four by
fifty isn't enough space? Do we ever say that, like
we need to make this a bigger court. I know
that's kind of been brought up, and you know, you
always go with it. Well, the arenas are built for
a certain thing. Well maybe maybe down the road. Anytime
you build a new arena, you've got to sort of
leave enough space that and in hockey, they mostly played

(54:02):
in hockey arenas, right, In hockey, ice is the bigger surface. Yeah,
it wasn't that an issue with the Barclays Center the
Islanders when they were playing. They didn't design it for
hockey because the Owlders resually said they didn't want to come. Yeah,
they decided they wanted to comment. It wasn't it wasn't
Bill remember that. Yeah, But I mean you just think
about thinking about how many things are built on this

(54:24):
service is being ninety four by fifty. If you say, well,
why do we doing that anymore? You have to change
literally like the big construction of all these arenas. You know,
that's like, in some ways that's a belief. I don't
know now, I'm like really going a little deep here
spaced out. The NBA's three point line changed everything you

(54:45):
thought you knew about basketball. The author is Mike Prada
p r A d A. Go out and get that
book and spark these kind of conversations with your friends
around the bar when you're watching your NBA games from
uh On on a Friday night, Mike, it's great to
talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing and uh,
you know, maybe we'll do this again down the road.

(55:06):
Appreciate it. I would love it. Thank you so much
for having me in for the great work that you do,
you know, calling nets games. Thank you, Mike. That interview
with Mike Prada took a poignant turn there at the
end when he talked about his dad and obviously a
guy like Mike and writing this book as a love
for the NBA and to see where that came from

(55:29):
going to games, Wizards games with his dad, who then
he lost tragically. It kind of reminded the analogy I
was going to use about the book and the relation
to the NBA and it's evolution. It's kind of like parenting.
It was interesting that Mike brought up that story about
Nay Smith wanting, you know, envisioning the game to be
kind of this wild, chaotic game, but in the beginning,

(55:51):
just like a parent, you've got to give it some
structure and then you can kind of let it evolve.
I love the movie Father of the Bride Steve Martin,
and he's talking to his future son in law's parents
and the father says to him. Sometimes you just have

(56:12):
to let them go and hope you brought him up right.
It's always stuck with me in my life and my
life as a parent. So that was an interesting analogy
to see where the game has evolved. It's like, you know,
Nay Smith was the father. He envisioned it. He envisioned
a life for his child, but he knew he needed

(56:32):
to give us some structure. The NBA gave a lot
of structure. Have let it evolve, and it's evolved rapidly.
Um when it comes to fathers and sons, you get nostalgic.
You heard Mike pray to get nostalgic there, fathers and daughters,
mothers and daughters. My first NBA game I remember was

(56:54):
my dad. I was about six years old. My dad
brought me out to a New York Nets games there
first year in the NBA, but they were still playing
in Long Island one year before they went to New
Jersey and I actually saw the Nets play the Phoenix
Suns and I was about six years old. I vaguely
remember it, but I do remember the sunburst on the
shorts of the uniforms of the Suns. It always stuck

(57:16):
with me and then when they went to those throwbacks
a few years ago, that wave of emotion and nostalgia
just poured over me. And you think about your your
relationship with your parents and the structure they gave you
and then hopefully brought you up right, and then you
can evolve as a human being. The the song I'll

(57:36):
bring up for this episode in the direction that it's
gone is my favorite song from my favorite band, song
called Release from Pearl Jam. It's a son talking to
his father about letting go. Oh, dear dad, can you

(57:56):
see me now? I am myself like you somehow I'll
wait up in the dark for you to speak to me.
I'll hold the pain release me. Thanks for listening, guys
to the very first episode of two thousand twenty three.

(58:16):
My thanks to producer Tom Dowd, engineer Isaac Lee. Happy
new Year, great things to come in hopefully for everyone
out there. Thanks for listening. I'm Chris Corino. This is
the voice of the next pos