Steve Kerr has spent the last decade coaching the greatest shooter in basketball history, building the NBA’s most famous modern offense, and helping turn the three-point line from a weapon into a worldview. So naturally, he now wonders if the league might be better off without it.
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Kerr was asked about the idea of adding a four-point shot. He went the other way entirely, saying:
“I would consider getting rid of the three point line.”
When asked whether he had ever proposed that to anyone with power, Kerr laughed off the idea as too radical, then delivered the perfect punchline:
“No, no, because it’s too out there. And plus, I coach Steph Curry, so I’d rather wait till Steph’s retired.”
That is the irony, of course. Kerr is not some grumpy traditionalist yelling at clouds from midrange. He was one of the best three-point shooters in NBA history as a player, then became the coach who unlocked Curry, Klay Thompson, small-ball spacing, pace, motion and all the beautiful chaos that made the Warriors a dynasty. If the three-point revolution had a house band, Kerr conducted it.
But his point is not really anti-shooting. It is anti-sameness.
Kerr argued that analytics have made basketball too efficient for its own imagination. Everyone knows the best shots now: layups, dunks, free throws and threes, especially corner threes. The result is a league where the “bad” 22-footer at the top of the key has become basketball’s abandoned shopping mall. Nobody wants to live there anymore. Too many possessions now feel like the same math problem solved by different jerseys.
That is why Kerr’s idea sounds insane and interesting at the same time. Remove the three-point line, and suddenly the floor changes. The midrange is no longer a forbidden zone. Big men matter differently. Cutters, post players, passers and weird offensive ecosystems might return. Or maybe the game becomes uglier, more crowded and less explosive. Kerr admitted he does not know if it would work. That uncertainty is part of what makes the comment fascinating.
The funniest part is that Kerr knows exactly how ridiculous it sounds coming from him. Getting rid of the three while coaching Curry would be like Henry Ford proposing a horse comeback while selling cars. So Kerr waits. Let Steph retire first. Let the greatest shooter ever finish bending the sport around his gravity. Then, maybe, the coach who helped weaponize the arc can ask whether basketball has become too addicted to it.
