Author Archives: Scott Bowles

Why The NBA Is Dying


The NBA is losing its grip on America’s attention, and the numbers prove it.

Over the past 20 years, the league has experienced an explosion in three-point shooting, growing from an average of 15.8 attempts per game in 2004 to a staggering 37.5 this season.

Yet, despite the increase in volume, the league’s three-point shooting percentage has remained stagnant, hovering around 35%. This inefficiency from beyond the arc isn’t just a basketball problem—it’s a business problem.

I love basketball. My mother, nicknamed “Mighty Mouse” in high school, earned her scholarship playing for Vanderbilt’s women’s team back when Peabody College was part of the program.

She taught me to love the beauty of the game: the pick-and-roll, the mid-range jumper, the art of the post-up. Today, those fundamentals are gasping for air in a league drowning in three-point attempts.

TV ratings have been declining for years, mirroring the rise of the three-point era. In the 2010-11 season, games on ABC averaged over 5 million viewers.

By last season, that number was barely 1.4 million—a 72% drop. This season, ESPN’s ratings are down another 28%, and TNT’s viewership is flat at best.

It’s not just that teams are shooting more threes. It’s that they’re shooting them at the expense of everything else.

The mid-range game? Dead. The post game? Buried. Even fast breaks often end in players pulling up for a corner three instead of attacking the rim. The obsession with “math” has turned the game into a spreadsheet.

And yet, the math isn’t even working. The league-wide shooting percentage on threes hasn’t budged in two decades. The supposed efficiency of these shots is an illusion when players are chucking them up in record numbers without any meaningful improvement in accuracy.

There’s a simple fix: the return of the inside game. Closer shots increase accuracy, plain and simple. Dominant big men like Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan thrived because they lived in the paint, punishing defenses and drawing fouls.

Re-emphasizing the post game and mid-range play wouldn’t just diversify the offensive landscape—it would make games more engaging and unpredictable.

This isn’t the game my mother played. It isn’t the game I fell in love with. The drama of the NBA—the David versus Goliath battles, the thrill of last-second buzzer-beaters—feels diluted when every possession is a predictable sequence of drive-and-kick to the perimeter.

Fans notice. They’re not just voting with their remotes; they’re walking away. Critics like Shaquille O’Neal and B.J. Armstrong have called the modern game robotic, a monotonous barrage of three-point attempts that sacrifices entertainment for analytics.

This is still basketball, but it’s not the same game. It’s an endless loop of three-point attempts that rarely deliver the payoff they promise.

The NBA doesn’t need to eliminate the three-point shot, but it desperately needs to restore balance.

Until then, fans like me—and the viewers the league depends on—will keep looking elsewhere.

The NBA bet big on the three-point revolution. So far, it’s not a winning shot.

Remember When Things Were Real?

In the fast-paced world of technology, few inventions stand the test of time. Once-trendy gadgets and innovations have now become relics of the past, overshadowed by newer and more efficient products.

Let’s take a nostalgic journey through 10 modern inventions that have been relegated to the annals of history.

1.

Telephone Landlines

Since at least 1876, telephone landlines have connected people across long distances, allowing communication on a scale that was never possible before. But the once familiar ring of landline phones is now something of the past. Most modern households have abandoned their landline phones altogether in favor of the convenience and mobility offered by mobile devices. 

2.

Typewriters

Before the era of word processors and computers, typewriters were the primary tool for producing written documents. The mechanical sound of keys striking paper was the expected background noise in most offices around the world, and there was at least one typewriter in every household. Today, despite their practical obsolescence, they remain within intelligence agencies and in handling top-secret documentation, or wherever a connection to the internet is more of a liability than an advantage.

3.

Portable CD Players

The successor to the portable cassette player, the compact disc player vastly improved the experience of listening to music on the go. Sadly, its reign was somewhat short-lived, as the rise of smaller and more versatile MP3 players rendered these clunky devices obsolete.

4.

Fax Machines

In the pre-digital era, fax machines were the only way to transmit scanned documents quickly. A revolutionary device, it quickly became a staple of offices and businesses everywhere. However, the advent of email, cloud storage, and digital signatures made fax machines mostly obsolete.

5.

Pagers

Before smartphones, pagers were the ultimate communication gadget. Doctors, emergency personnel, and business executives relied on these pocket-sized devices to stay connected everywhere they went. However, their limited capabilities meant they were quickly replaced by the rise of mobile phones that could support both text messaging and voice calls.

6.

Floppy Disks

Before CDs, USB drives, and cloud storage, floppy disks were the primary means of portable data storage. Their simplicity of use and small size meant they were adopted in both domestic and commercial settings. However, their limited capacity and susceptibility to damage made them impractical compared to modern storage solutions.

7.

Film Cameras

While they are still around, having a working film camera today is quite rare and almost synonymous with being a photography student of some sort. But before the ubiquity of smartphones equipped with high-quality cameras, these devices were the primary tool for capturing memories of friends and family. Their grainy quality and the whirring sound of a film advance lever, however, still evokes nostalgia for simpler times in photography.

8.

VHS Tapes

The VHS tape (and player) really revolutionized home entertainment, allowing viewers to watch their favorite movies from the comfort of their living rooms. But with the emergence of DVD and Blu-ray discs, followed by digital streaming services, VHS tapes became obsolete. Even the old saying “Be Kind, Rewind,” often affixed to rental tapes, now feels like a relic of a bygone era.

9.

Dial-Up Internet

The unmistakable (and weirdly cacophonous) sound of a dial-up modem connecting to the internet once signaled a gateway to the digital world. Unfortunately, the glacial pace of dial-up internet became intolerable with the advent of broadband connections. Today, in the era of high-speed internet, the idea of waiting minutes for a web page to load feels like a distant memory.

10.

DVD Players

DVD players were a true jump in quality for home entertainment systems. With their superior video and audio quality compared to VHS tapes, DVDs quickly became a staple in households around the world. Their extended capacity also meant movies came with all sorts of goodies like director’s commentary and various choices for subtitles. However, with the advent of online streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, DVDs fell out of use, and the sight of a DVD collection gathering dust on a shelf became commonplace in many houses.