NICK ALTSCHULLER: Some might think it’s odd for a man to release the rights of his greatest work. But not Martin Manley.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I, Martin Manley, being the creator and owner of this site, neither hold nor retain any claim or copyright on any part of this. Rather, I release all rights to this work, making it public domain. Anyone can do with it whatever they wish.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Martin Manley was definitely odd. He slept every other day. For years, he only drank Pepsi. For the last decade of his life, he wore a fedora at all times except in church or if he was sleeping. And he was obsessive about basketball. Not the action, but the stats. For all his eccentricities, Martin also had a superpower.

 

RICH LEVINE: But not the cape and tights sort of thing. His power dealt with numbers. Whenever he looked at them, they appeared across the color spectrum, from Celtic green to Laker gold. It’s called synesthesia. It’s a condition where senses are mistaken for each other.

 

RICH LEVINE: So, imagine tasting words or seeing sounds. It can trip you up unless you harness it. And once Martin Manley did, he figured out a way to completely change the game of basketball. His vision would increase space and emphasize efficiency. He believed if you weren’t maximizing the potential of every single moment, you were wasting it.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: A key part of his vision? We should be shooting more threes. The predominance of three-pointers is the most controversial aspect of today’s game. But they were barely taken in the 1980s. Back then, the game was vastly different than the one you see today. It was a bunch of tall guys fighting for position near the hoop, clogging the lane. The space behind the arc? Almost an afterthought.

 

RICH LEVINE: And that’s where the game might have stayed if not for our hero. He saw the numbers behind the game, dancing like the colors in a kaleidoscope. It was pure heaven, a basketball heaven. So he made it his mission to elevate the game into the clouds.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: What’s crazy is Martin Manley actually did it, in a way, at least. The trouble is his story didn’t quite turn out the way he imagined.

 

RICH LEVINE: But it ended exactly how he planned.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And he even got his wish: for someone to tell his story.

 

RICH LEVINE: That would be us: couple of writers who lived through the history, two basketball nerds who can still tell you which old NBA players share our birthdays and used to put ourselves to sleep at night readin’ the same old NBA Almanac year after year.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Which is not how you’re supposed to use an almanac, so it’s safe to say we have our own eccentricities.

 

RICH LEVINE: We can sympathize with a man like Martin. I mean, in some frightening ways, even relate to him. We trailed this guy for more than a decade. He haunted our thoughts and altered the way we live. He also inspired us to tell his story.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So let’s get this thing goin’. Let’s talk about where the game is today and how it’s miles apart from its origins. And let’s trace the history of its changes, from the peach basket to the three-point line, which isn’t even a line. It’s an imperfect arc, which is a hell of a metaphor for this story.

 

RICH LEVINE: From 30 for 30 Podcasts, I’m Rich Levine.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I’m Nick Altschuller. And this is Chasing Basketball Heaven.

 

RICH LEVINE: Episode 1: The Imperfect Arc.

 

ARCHIVAL: They do have a time out. Decide not to use it. Curry way downtown. Bang! Bang! Oh, what a shot from Curry.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Today the NBA is massive. It’s an industry with $76 billion in media deals and growing markets around the world. But the league’s beginnings were humble, the contest just something to stage between hockey games. The NBA evolved slowly on its road to success.

 

RICH LEVINE: Nick and I have watched a lot of that process play out both as basketball fans and writers covering the NBA. For more than 40 years, whether sitting in the stands, on press row, at home on the couch, or just about anywhere on our phones, the biggest change we and I think just about every fan has seen is the explosion of three-pointers.

 

RICH LEVINE: Just to give you an idea, back in 1984, when Nick and I were just adorable little Massholes, the Celtics played the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Over the seven-game series, the teams took a total of 42 three-pointers. In the 2024 Finals, in only a five-game series, the Celtics and Mavericks combined to shoot 359 three-pointers.

 

(ARCHIVAL: UNINTEL)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In March 2025, the Lakers and newly acquired Luka Dončić came to Boston for a battle with the defending champion Celtics. Rich and I were there.

 

RICH LEVINE: When we say we were gonna guess how many three-pointers were shot tonight, what’d you– did you say 80?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I said 80.

 

MALE VOICE: Combined?

 

RICH LEVINE: Combined 80–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Combined, yes.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I felt a little silly after that guess, 80 seeming like a ludicrous number. I was very close. They shot 78. Back in that ’84 season, the Celtics and Lakers combined to attempt 455 threes. In 2025, both teams combined for nearly 7,000.

 

ARCHIVAL: Tatum long three-pointer.

 

ARCHIVAL: That’s (UNINTEL PHRASE). Way downtown is Tatum.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Basketball itself is over a hundred years old. And in the beginning, back in the 1890s, there was no three-point line. Actually the game was more ultimate Frisbee than what we know today. The player with the ball wasn’t even allowed to move, so no crossovers and, safe to say, no dunking either.

 

RICH LEVINE: Today the big basketball buzzword is efficiency. Back then it was anything but. As many know, the first hoop was a peach basket. But did you know it was over a decade before anyone thought to cut a hole in the bottom? After every single score, they had to stop the action, bring out a ladder. Not very exciting unless you’re a aspiring firefighter. (LAUGH) Also not very efficient.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Love ladders. (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: I can imagine Nick, you– you know, when p– high in the stands, he just starts clapping w– as they bring the ladder out. (CLAPS) (LAUGH)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Yes. (WHOOPING) Back then, height was king, and the game seemed trapped in a thicket of very tall people hanging out under the hoop.

 

RICH LEVINE: So rule-makers began a systematic effort to push them away.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In 1935, the NCAA introduced a three-second rule.

 

RICH LEVINE: This stated that if a player dropped their gum on the court but still wanted to chew it, they just had to pick it up very quickly.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That’s more of an unwritten rule. (LAUGH) The one I’m referring to prohibited offensive players from standing in the lane or by the hoop for longer than three seconds at a time. Then, in 1944, the college game identified goaltending as an issue and banned it. The rule made it illegal to touch the ball in its downward flight or while just above the rim.

 

RICH LEVINE: This was a reaction to the early giants of the sport, like Oklahoma State’s seven-footer Bob Kurland, credited as the first man to dunk in a college game, and also six-foot-ten DePaul center George Mikan, the first truly dominant big man, and I should say the first to rock a mean pair of rec specs.

 

ARCHIVAL: Mikan is still a man to reckon with as this one-hander proves. A great star giving his all after a long layoff.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: With this new rule, Mikan could no longer jump up and swat away shots falling toward the hoop.

 

RICH LEVINE: In 1949, two rival professional leagues, the BAA and NBL, merged to form the National Basketball Association. And before long, the NBA had its own Mikan problem.

 

ARCHIVAL: It’s Minneapolis’ ball. Schaefer passes to Mikan in the pivot, and the big center dribbles in and scores.

 

RICH LEVINE: In that 1949 season, the big man averaged 27 points a game.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And this is a time when only one other player even averaged 20.

 

RICH LEVINE: And Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers cruised to the first ever NBA title.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That next season, teams decided the only way to beat Mikan was to prevent the Lakers from having the ball in the first place. Good strategy. Horrible aesthetics.

 

RICH LEVINE: In one particularly boring game, the Fort Wayne Pistons held the ball for minutes at a time on their way to a 19-18 victory over Mikan’s Lakers. It’s still the lowest-scoring game in NBA history.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The league took action. First in 1951, they created the Mikan Rule, which widened the paint under the hoop from six to 12 feet. In conjunction with the three-second rule, the hope was an expanded key would force big men farther away. In 1954, to combat the stalling tactics, the NBA introduced the 24-second shot clock.

 

RICH LEVINE: And while the shot clock did improve the pace of the game, efforts to move players farther away from the basket didn’t have as much impact as they hoped.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The reward for scoring from two feet out, or ten feet out, or 25 feet was all just two points, so you might as well be closer where the shots are easier.

 

RICH LEVINE: Basically the NBA needed a spark, a shot of spontaneity, a need that grew steadily as the Celtics won 11 of 13 championships through the late ’50s and ’60s behind six-foot-ten Bill Russell, a dominant big man and the greatest defensive player the league has ever seen.

 

ARCHIVAL: The miraculous Boston Celtics become the NBA champions for the 11th time in 13 years.

 

RICH LEVINE: Defense doesn’t really sell tickets. Even prolific scoring gets old. Want an example of NBA popularity in the ’60s? When Wilt Chamberlain had his 100-point game in 1962, there were barely 4,000 fans in the stands. The game wasn’t televised. There wasn’t a single photographer working.

 

RICH LEVINE: The only reason we even have that legendary snapshot of Wilt with the number 100 written on scrap paper is because an off-duty AP photographer named Paul Vathis happened to be at the game with his son. With the league growing stale, it was ripe for competition. In 1961, Abe Saperstein, founder of the Harlem Globetrotters, started the American Basketball League.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Standing just five-foot-three, Saperstein is the shortest man in the basketball Hall of Fame, and his idea to compete with the NBA was to empower the smaller player. So he introduced the first professional three-point line. Before that season, he walked out onto the court with a roll of tape and measured an arc just shy of 24 feet.

 

RICH LEVINE: Okay, I gotta ask. Why just shy of 24 feet?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I will tell you. It’s because it just felt right.

 

RICH LEVINE: Hmm.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Honestly, his son, Jerry, is (LAUGH) quoted as saying, “They just arbitrarily drew lines. There’s no scientific basis.” The three and the league didn’t catch on, though, and the ABL only lasted a season and a half.

 

RICH LEVINE: However, come 1967, the NBA finally had some serious competition: the American Basketball Association, or the ABA, founded on energy and creativity, marketing itself as professional basketball with the volume turned up. They replaced the standard brown leather ball with the now iconic red, white, and blue one. The league would feature high-flying stars like Dr. J, Julius Irving, and the Iceman, George Gervin. They had a slam dunk contest and also a three-point line.

 

ARCHIVAL: The ABA feels that this extra incentive to shoot from farther out causes the defense to open up, leading to more exciting games for the fans, give the team that’s behind an opportunity to close the gap quickly with long, three-point shots.

 

ARCHIVAL: Gives a little man more of a chance to balance up his value in the game compared to the big men.

 

RICH LEVINE: Sure, it was part gimmick, but in the ABA, the three-point line was also a selling point. Threes were a particular favorite of league commissioner, wouldn’t you know it, the man with the rec specs, George Mikan. Here’s one quote from Mikan in a history of the ABA called Loose Balls: “We called it the home run because the three-pointer was exactly that. It brought fans out of their seats.”

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The three-point line, that imperfect arc, awarding 50% more points. Now players had a reason to move farther away from the basket. And as an added bonus, guys like Irving and Gervin had a suddenly wide-open court.

 

ARCHIVAL: Julius Irving on the run, Dr. J.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: With players spread out, the key was harder to clog, driving lanes opened up, and the game flowed in a way it hadn’t before. But when the two leagues finally merged in 1976 and that opportunity for change was there, the three-point line didn’t make the cut.

 

RICH LEVINE: According to Angelo Drossos, then-owner of the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA moguls didn’t want the three-point shot. Celtics president Red Auerbach hated it. He had everybody up in arms against the play.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And guess what? NBA ratings got worse. By the late ’70s, national TV ratings were down 26%. The Finals weren’t even shown live but on taped delay, and the league’s games on CBS were routinely pummeled by boxing. Attendance was down in major markets like New York, Chicago, and even L.A.

 

RICH LEVINE: And that brings us to what is arguably the most important season in the history of professional basketball, 1979.

 

ARCHIVAL: We make a lot about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: There are two reasons why 1979 is so vital. One you’re familiar with even if you’re not a big basketball fan. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the league. Fresh off their college national championship showdown, these young rival superstars generated a lot of excitement.

 

MAGIC JOHNSON: Very excited about– the big crowd and about being here in Boston for my first time.

 

LARRY BIRD: Gonna be a big game, a lot of enthusiasm throughout the crowd. And– I just hope the best team wins today.

 

RICH LEVINE: But what has gone unremembered, or more accurately undervalued, is the second reason 1979 deserves some love. Three years after the merger, the NBA adopted one of the ABA’s marketing ploys on a one-year trial basis: the three-pointer.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It happened on October 12th, the first night of the ’79 season, at the old Boston Garden. The Celtics hosted the Houston Rockets. Of course we remember it as Bird’s first game.

 

RICH LEVINE: Everyone at the Garden marveled at Larry Bird’s every move, but it was a play about eight minutes into the game where his debut was briefly overshadowed by teammate Chris Ford, a floppy-haired, mustachioed fellow.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Who, by the way, looks a lot more like my geometry teacher than he ever did a professional shooting guard.

 

RICH LEVINE: Or is it more that a professional shooting guard used to look more like a geometry teacher?

 

ARCHIVAL: –over to Bird. Bird back over to Archibald. Archibald takes one. Balls it up. (UNINTEL) to Ford. A step back pop. It’s good. It’s a three-point play. Chris Ford, a three-point play.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The first three-pointer in NBA history.

 

RICH LEVINE: But here’s the funny thing. It was Boston’s only three-point make of the game. The Celtics didn’t hit another until a week later. For that whole season, Boston barely attempted 400 threes. In 2025, they took nearly 4,000.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So how did we get to where teams are routinely shooting thousands of three-pointers a year? Let’s start with a look at Brian Taylor, the first play to lead the NBA in threes. Back in the ABA, he was Julius Irving’s wingman on the nets and saw firsthand how long-range threes opened up the court for the doctor. His perspective is something most execs, coaches, and players couldn’t see.

 

RICH LEVINE: That first NBA season with the new line, Taylor hit a league-leading 90 threes for the San Diego Clippers.

 

ARCHIVAL: Here’s Taylor. Boy, he just sets up automatically outside that three-point plane.

 

RICH LEVINE: All by himself, Taylor eclipsed the season three-point totals of 19 of 22 NBA teams. And when we caught up with him, first thing he noticed was my hat.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: So you’re a Celtic fan, huh?

 

RICH LEVINE: I am, yes.

 

RICH LEVINE: And wanted to know if I had the old Larry Bird sneakers to mathc.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: You got the three-quarters black– Converse on? (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: I know. Man, I wish. I wonder what one of those would go for now.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: I (LAUGHTER) know, right?

 

RICH LEVINE: It’s unbelievable. I mean– I mean, y– you know as well as anyone, but you think about the shoes guys play in now, and back then with the Chuck Taylors or those Converse, like, there wasn’t so much– that much support, was there?

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: No, there was no support. (LAUGH) I wonder how we were able to– jump so high. (LAUGH) I didn’t start jumpin’ high until I got my first pair of Adidas, though, when I was in high school, so. (LAUGH) You know, we really were in the vanguard of– wearin’ Nikes in the late ’70s, and you had to– get a new pair of Nikes almost every game ’cause they spread so quickly. (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: A first-round pick out of Princeton in the 1972 ABA draft, Taylor lived through the initial history of the three-point line, though at first, like everybody else, he barely noticed. What he loved about the ABA was the colorful ball, not the three-point line.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: I didn’t even care– I didn’t even think about the three for several years in the ABA, as a matter of fact. You know, I look at my statistics, and I didn’t shoot a lot of threes.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Over his first three years, from 1972 to 1975, Taylor attempted less than half a three-pointer a game.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: So I had to come to grips with whether it was a good shot or not. And so I gave a lot of thought to the mathematics and the– and the analytics of it. And it took me– t– took me three years to really feel comfortable shootin’ that shot. Actually the year that I led the ABA in three-point shootin’, still didn’t shoot a lot of threes. I just shot a really high percentage. But– think I shot, like, 42%.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: He thought correctly. He shot 42.1%, to be exact.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: You know, I figured l– thinkin’ about it in terms of what a 42% equivalent would be for a two-point shot, and it’s– it’s up there. You know, 42% is closer than on 60%.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: What Taylor means is if he attempted 100 three-pointers and hit 42, which would be 42%, that would be worth 126 points. If he shot 100 two-pointers and hit 60, for 60%, that would only be worth 120 points. So shooting 42% from three is actually better than shooting 60% from two.

 

RICH LEVINE: Taylor made the leap to the NBA when the leagues merged in 1976. So when the NBA added the three-point line in 1979, he was already familiar with the math. But, as he told us, the real reason he led the league in threes was his head coach.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: I was fortunate enough to have the late Gene Shue, who was analytically thinkin’ and saw that I– like, “Brian could shoot from that distance, and we’ll get one extra point.” So he gave me the green light in 1979 to shoot that shot.

 

ARCHIVAL: Free off to Taylor. And Taylor pulls up. Three-pointer. It’s good by Taylor. (LAUGH) Brian Taylor–

 

ARCHIVAL: Oh, look how far out this shot was. If they had a four-pointer, that would definitely be it, wouldn’t it?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Like Abe Saperstein, Shue had a vision for improving short players’ lives. But Brian’s next coach was Paul Silas, a former NBA champion and All-Star whose entire game was about muscle under the basket.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: Paul Silas came in, and he’s bein’ a big man, he hated the shot. You look at the– my numbers, I shot probably 50% less.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I was gonna ask you about that.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: ‘Cause the coach didn’t believe in it.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That’s what it was? Okay.

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: Yeah, Paul Silas didn’t believe in the three-point shot. You know, he still had me nervous all the time. I always had to look over– on the sidelines and him yellin’ at me for c– comin’ down off the break and– and shootin’ the three-pointer off the break.

 

RICH LEVINE: Did you ever envision that the game was gonna evolve in the way that it did?

 

BRIAN TAYLOR: I have no idea. No clue. Because I even questioned whether they would keep it because there were so many detractors of– of that shot comin’ into the NBA in ’79. So I didn’t even know whether it was gonna last or not. It was, like, the great experiment.

 

ARCHIVAL: Taylor, three-pointer.

 

ARCHIVAL: Phenomenal shooting. I’ll tell you, that’s tough out there.

 

ARCHIVAL: It’s a long ways out there, isn’t it, Keith–

 

ARCHIVAL: Twenty-two feet from the sidelines. Twenty-three–

 

RICH LEVINE: I guess the experiment succeeded, because the NBA three-point line did stick around. But for a long while, it was still mostly ignored.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In that first season, ’79-’80, teams averaged 2.8 attempts a game. By 1986, attempts did go up but just barely: 3.3 threes a game. It was still little more than an oddity.

 

RICH LEVINE: And in a way, like, we can understand that, right? Like, head coaches like Paul Silas were old-school guys who had mastered a game that didn’t include the three.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: None of the books on basketball included three-point strategy. None of the players had grown up shooting threes. This kinda thing takes time.

 

RICH LEVINE: And in general, the NBA was still mostly just ignoring advanced stats, which is basically anything beyond the raw numbers you see in a box score: points, rebounds, assists. But an advanced stat uses those raw numbers to provide some next-level insight.

 

RICH LEVINE: For instance, imagine a catch-all shooting percentage, one that includes twos and threes and corrects for the difference in value. Today we have that stat. It’s called effective field goal percentage. But back then, it was hard enough to convince teams that three is more than two.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: This was an era when drafting Sam Bowie–

 

RICH LEVINE: (CLEARS THROAT) Seven-foot-one.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: –thank you, over Michael Jordan–

 

RICH LEVINE: Oh– were you aware, Michael Jordan– six-foot-six? (LAUGH)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: –I am now, thank you, was defensible because the Portland Trail Blazers already had Clyde Drexler–

 

RICH LEVINE: If you’re wondering, six-foot-seven.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: –a two-way star with multiple All-NBA seasons ahead of him.

 

RICH LEVINE: Although, honestly, Nick, I do get it. Like, who needs a second All-Star swingman?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I don’t know. But seven-footers with troubling medical records? You can never get enough of those, right?

 

RICH LEVINE: But you could blame the NBA for ignoring complicated math when the bottom line was on a meteoric rise. By the mid 1980s, the league was more popular than ever. Finally it had bone fide star power. Bird and Magic had electrified the nation. Ratings boomed. Fans came back. Who has the energy to worry about math when your product is soaring, collecting new fans with every new highlight dunk of memorable commercial?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: New fans like me.

 

RICH LEVINE: And me.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Two kids from Massachusetts a little too young to understand the greatness of the Celtics, and still decades away from understanding the power of statistical analysis, but falling in love with professional basketball.

 

RICH LEVINE: My first NBA memory is from Game 2 of the first round of that 1986 postseason. I was there with my dad at the old Boston Garden.

 

ARCHIVAL: Takin’ the tempo away from the Celtics, trying to, Michael Jordan right now.

 

RICH LEVINE: Twenty-three-year-old Jordan scored a still-NBA-playoff-record 63 points. That afternoon, the Bulls and Celtics scored a combined 266 points. I caught some of this game recently on YouTube, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every single possession, all ten players squeezed inside the three-point line. It was like the floor outside the arc was hot lava.

 

ARCHIVAL: (UNINTEL) starting Michael Jordan. Jordan goes up for the shot and hits it, and has 61 points to tie Elgin Baylor.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I was born the year the NBA three was introduced, 1979.

 

RICH LEVINE: Oh, Jesus, you’re old. (LAUGH) The ’70s?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I– I’m l– I’m w– a year older than you.

 

RICH LEVINE: You’re an entire decade older than me.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: But we both grew up playing at a time when taking a three was more likely to see you benched than cheered. At six-four, I stood taller than average, and the idea of me playing anywhere outside the paint was absurd to any coach I ever had.

 

RICH LEVINE: “You can’t teach height,” they used to say. And they certainly weren’t gonna teach us to shoot from distance.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It was still the big man era, but there was a glimmer of change. The NBA embraced the three in a way, treating the novelty like a side act at the All-Star Game, the long-distance shootout, AKA the Three-Point Contest. Our man Larry Bird won it in 1986.

 

RICH LEVINE: It should be noted he also won in 1987.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Let the record show also 1988.

 

RICH LEVINE: Something was starting to change. In 1989, the NBA was ready to blast into the future at All-Star Weekend in Houston, an event of critical importance to long-distance shots.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And to us.

 

RICH LEVINE: And to our story.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: For it’s here, in Houston, where our winding journey finally meets up with the man who had calculated one simple path forward.

 

RICH LEVINE: Right after this break.

 

(Commercial Break)

 

ARCHIVAL: We are now inside a sold-out Astrodome. And before game time, we have a very special All-Star introduction.

 

ULTRAMAGNETIC MCS: Yeah, (UNINTEL PHRASE) All-Stars.

 

RICH LEVINE: The 1989 All-Star Game was held inside the cavernous Houston Astrodome. It’s a baseball field, so they refitted it for hoops. They laid down a court on top of the infield and lined it all with a red carpet.

 

ARCHIVAL: Oh!

 

ARCHIVAL: Barkley follows up.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: They even set up extra sets of stands.

 

RICH LEVINE: If you were in the upper deck, at the top row, the seven-footers would look like ants.

 

ARCHIVAL: Olajuwon.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And you probably were not happy with the ticket price.

 

RICH LEVINE: Yes, $13. (LAUGHTER)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And yet they sold the thing out. At that point, this All-Star Game was the most attended game in NBA history.

 

RICH LEVINE: So they pulled out all of the stops, including a special theme song for the weekend, aptly titled NBA All-Star Rap from the legendary Ultramagnetic MCs.

 

KOOL KEITH: Kevin Duckworth dominating the Earth as the middle man, dominating every little man. Back and forth, down below post for the slam, pulverizin’ the hoop ’cause he’s an All-Star.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It’s truly a time capsule into an age of awkward progress for the NBA.

 

ARCHIVAL: Look out.

 

ARCHIVAL: Yeah.

 

ARCHIVAL: Oh!

 

ARCHIVAL: Oh!

 

ARCHIVAL: Karl Malone, who was the top scorer–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: After a booming decade, it was a time of transition. 1989 was the first All-Star Game of the ’80s without Bird and Magic. Bird missed just about the entire season with bone spurs in his feet.

 

RICH LEVINE: Ouch.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Magic was the leading vote-getter for the West but skipped the game with an injury so that 41-year-old Lakers teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on a farewell tour in his 20th NBA season, could play in one last All-Star Game.

 

ARCHIVAL: And there’s the hook. All right–

 

ARCHIVAL: Yes!

 

ARCHIVAL: That’s great–

 

ARCHIVAL: All right.

 

ARCHIVAL: Standing O, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (LAUGH) in his 18th All-Star Game.

 

ARCHIVAL: He hit the skyhook.

 

RICH LEVINE: Yes, it was a time of transition, the end of an era, the most lucrative decade in NBA history. But a transition into what?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Well, into guys like Dale Ellis.

 

RICH LEVINE: Nick, you have any curiosity into how tall Dale Ellis was?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I feel like you’re gonna tell me.

 

RICH LEVINE: Well, Dale Ellis, for those keeping score, was six-foot-seven.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Thank you so much, Richard.

 

DALE ELLIS: Can you hear me?

 

RICH LEVINE: Yeah, we got you, Dale. How are ya?

 

DALE ELLIS: Rich, how are you?

 

RICH LEVINE: Good. And I’m here with– Nick is here. That’s my partner in all this.

 

DALE ELLIS: How you doin’, Nick?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Good. How are you?

 

DALE ELLIS: Fantastic.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Thanks for takin’ the time.

 

DALE ELLIS: (LAUGH) No, my pleasure.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: These days, Dale Ellis is remembered as a prolific three-point shooter. He was the first player to reach 1,000 threes in a career.

 

DALE ELLIS: So I was always best friends with the guards, the guys that pass you the ball. (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: But he actually never attempted an in-game three until he made it to the NBA, because like every other player at that time, Ellis didn’t grow up with a three-point line.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That may seem impossible to believe, as right this minute there are kids imagining they’re Steph Curry in driveways all across America. But when Ellis was a kid.

 

DALE ELLIS: I loved Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I was throwin’ hook shots. It didn’t matter how– what the– what distance I was from the basket. I was throwin’ a hook shot. I pretended to be him on the playgrounds.

 

RICH LEVINE: Playgrounds didn’t have three-point lines. Neither did high schools. And Dale Ellis never played with the line while in college at the University of Tennessee. So when Ellis got to the league, taken ninth by Dallas in the ’83 draft, he learned he could hit threes almost by accident thanks to a friendship with fellow Mavs rookie Derek Harper.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Harper is known as one of the best backcourt defenders of his generation.

 

DALE ELLIS: And after practice, we’d play one-on-one. He had great hands, so he was one of those guys that could make you go left or right.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Harper also took full advantage of an entirely different element of the game that the league had yet to outlow.

 

DALE ELLIS: The hand-checkin’ rules weren’t in place at that time, so it was hard to get past him to get– a clear lane to the basket. So at– at every opportunity, I would take what he would give me. And coaches saw me shootin’ threes. They had no idea that I can face the basket, and pull up from that distance, and shoot a three.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In the summer of ’86, Ellis moved to Seattle. He rose to stardom as the leader of an upstart SuperSonics team, who rocked the bright green and gold jerseys.

 

RICH LEVINE: I think they’re more of, like, a yellow, aren’t they?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The official website says gold.

 

RICH LEVINE: I think it’s more of, like, a yellow gold.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Yellow gold is gold, Rich.

 

RICH LEVINE: Fittingly, Ellis also changed his jersey number from 14 to number 3.

 

DALE ELLIS: I ended up in the startin’ lineup and threw the ball away a couple times. He t– called a time out and said– “You’re– you’re here to shoot it. If– you refuse to shoot it, you can sit next to me.” And I– decided, “I’m gonna shoot the basketball.” And my teammates knew that when the ball got in my hands, they can g– start jockeyin’ for position for a rebound. There might not be a rebound. (LAUGH) It’s goin’ in. “He’s shootin’ it.”

 

RICH LEVINE: That first year in Seattle, Ellis led the entire NBA in three-point attempts with 240.

 

ARCHIVAL: Three-pointer–

 

(Overtalk)

 

ARCHIVAL: –this one, Dale Ellis with the three.

 

ARCHIVAL: Ellis–

 

(Overtalk)

 

ARCHIVAL: –moneyball.

 

ARCHIVAL: (LAUGH) Moneyball.

 

ARCHIVAL: Dale Ellis again.

 

ARCHIVAL: This guy is on (LAUGH) fire. (LAUGHTER)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: He simultaneously ran away with the Most Improved Player Award.

 

RICH LEVINE: His increase from 7.1 to 24.9 points per game is still the largest single-season leap in NBA history.

 

ARCHIVAL: Dale’s got the stroke going.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And it landed him at the 1989 All-Star Game as the best long-range shooter in the game.

 

ARCHIVAL: –you know, he is just buryin’ ’em right now.

 

ARCHIVAL: That’s 14–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And he proved it that weekend by beating marksman Craig Hodges in the final of the Three-Point Shootout.

 

ARCHIVAL: It’s tied.

 

(Overtalk)

 

ARCHIVAL: It’s over.

 

ARCHIVAL: Dale Ellis has won it, but he has a chance to–

 

(Overtalk)

 

ARCHIVAL: Dale Ellis a bridesmaid no longer. Winner of the Long-Distance Shootout over Craig Hodges.

 

RICH LEVINE: Like Brian Taylor before him, Dale Ellis had stumbled on the secret.

 

DALE ELLIS: After shootin’ from that distance, I didn’t– quite get why more players weren’t shootin’ from there.

 

RICH LEVINE: But what Ellis didn’t know was that in Houston that weekend was the man who saw his full potential, the future, really; the man who saw numbers as colors and analytics as high religion; the one who on this very weekend found himself in position to change the game forever.

 

ARCHIVAL: Well, Dale Ellis, how’s it feel to have the trophy in your hand–

 

RICH LEVINE: He’d been watching Dale Ellis, studying him and his three-point attempts.

 

DALE ELLIS: We shot well today. I felt comin’ into it–

 

RICH LEVINE: Even if the attention wasn’t exactly mutual.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Should we ask about Martin? (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: Yeah, have you– do you kn– have you ever heard the name Martin Manley?

 

DALE ELLIS: No.

 

RICH LEVINE: Or the book– Basketball Heaven?

 

DALE ELLIS: No, I’m not familiar with him.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Martin was actually there in ’89.

 

DALE ELLIS: Oh.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: He was doing some reporting for TBS, but his whole thing was efficiency, and he was the first guy to say, like, “Why aren’t people shooting more three-pointers? This is silly.” So when you won the contest, he was– he was watchin’ you.

 

DALE ELLIS: Oh. Wow.

 

ARCHIVAL: Dale Ellis with a wide-open jumper. He won the Three-Point Shootout yesterday.

 

RICH LEVINE: Even if you were looking for Martin Manley during that 1989 All-Star Weekend, you probably would have walked right past him. He was unassuming, just a 30-something white guy from Kansas. Short, dark hair. Sturdy ’80s mustache.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: He wasn’t an imposing physical presence. He was soft spoken and never an athlete. He looked like someone who crunched statistics, not someone with strong opinions on NBA basketball. And truth be told, until a few years earlier, he wasn’t.

 

RICH LEVINE: But inspiration and opportunity struck, and once Martin had an idea, he would squeeze it for every last drop.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Martin Manley was a numbers guy. He was tired of conventional thinking in all aspects of life. He watched basketball games across the country, obsessively, nightly. He did the math, and he saw it clearly. “You are doing it wrong.”

 

RICH LEVINE: So he built his case in a book titled Basketball Heaven, in which Martin presented, among other things, the idea that shooting a decent percentage from three could earn you more points than a higher percentage from two. The math was too obvious to ignore, although to this point, the NBA had done a pretty good job.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Until now. Live on national TV.

 

ARCHIVAL: And still ahead, we’ve got more Inside the NBA.

 

RICH LEVINE: Inside the NBA.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: His golden opportunity to present his ideas to the world alongside the sport’s biggest names during the All-Star Weekend in Houston and catapult the NBA into a new era.

 

RICH LEVINE: This was his moment in the spotlight, in the center of the Astrodome.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And Martin couldn’t have asked for a better introduction from broadcaster Fred Hickman, host of Inside the NBA.

 

FRED HICKMAN: Joining me now is a legend in his own time, and he’s got a book to prove it. This is the book, Basketball Heaven. It is penned by Martin Manley. Martin Manley is a statistician extraordinaire. He has done for basketball what Bill James has done for baseball. And Martin, let’s talk about it right now–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Let’s wait a second. That thing Hickman just said is really important. It would have mattered a great deal to Martin or anyone else in his shoes, so let’s play it again.

 

FRED HICKMAN: Martin Manley. Martin Manley is a statistician extraordinaire. He has done for basketball what Bill James has done for baseball. And Martin, let’s talk–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Bill James.

 

RICH LEVINE: Big deal.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: If you’re a sports fan familiar with Bill James, you understand why this is a compliment of the highest order. It’s like Manley is making his national TV debut and being knighted at the same time.

 

RICH LEVINE: If you’re uniform with Bill James, allow my friend Nick, child of the 1970s, to offer this cheat sheet on one of the smartest people in sports.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Literally one year before you. (CLEARS THROAT) In the mid ’70s, Bill James was a night watchman at a baked beans factory in Kansas tired of the conventional thinking in baseball. In 1977, James self-published his first book, Baseball Abstract, which dug into the numbers in a way no one had before.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Today, that former night watchman is considered a sports Galileo, the first person to not only challenge conventional thinking but to argue successfully against ideas that had long been considered facts, the first to take the numbers available to everyone and prove that some statistics were overlooked and others vital to winning hadn’t yet even been invented.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So he invented them. His new interpretations forever changed strategy. Coaches called in relief pitchers earlier in the game. They figured out maybe intentional walks aren’t worth the risk. Today Bill James’ place in history is secured. He’s met with multiple U.S. presidents. He was named one of TIME‘s most influential people when that mattered. He appeared on The Simpsons as himself, more important. Brad Pitt even made a movie, Moneyball, based on Bill James’ work.

 

RICH LEVINE: Love Moneyball.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So, yeah, Bill James is a big deal. But in 1989, James was still a relative unknown. But not to Martin Manley. In fact, a lot of Martin’s thinking about efficiency in basketball was inspired by how Bill James thought about baseball. He was a huge inspiration for a fellow Kansan.

 

RICH LEVINE: And it was right there in quotes on the cover of Martin’s book that announcer Fred Hickman was holding up in front of a national TV audience, “The Bill James of basketball.”

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Basketball Heaven was smart, comprehensive, and most of all original. Through Manley’s eyes, readers got a peek at what the NBA could be if only they’d follow his advice, like this bit from the book. “The three-point shot has increased in popularity every year since the league first adopted it, but it’s not as popular as it should be. The three-pointer is a big advantage and should be used more effectively by NBA teams.”

 

FRED HICKMAN: Joining me now is a legend in his own time, and he’s got a book to prove it.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: This was a massive opportunity for basketball analytics but also a huge moment in the life of the man hoping to lead the revolution.

 

FRED HICKMAN: This is the book, Basketball Heaven. It is penned by Martin Manley.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The young man from small-town Kansas hoped to change black-and-white post ups to glorious Technicolor rainbows from way downtown. And perhaps more importantly to Martin, he could prove he was the smartest person in the room.

 

FRED HICKMAN: He has done for basketball what Bill James has done for baseball.

 

RICH LEVINE: And in this moment, as Fred Hickman introduced him, Martin sat perched between success and failure, stardom and anonymity. And Martin Manley, ever full of dualities, looks ready for both.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: There’s a twinkle in his eyes and a little wiggle to his mustache that can’t quite hide the smirk of a man ready to lay down the laws of basketball efficiency as if he had written them on stone tablets.

 

RICH LEVINE: At the same time, he’s a man in a brown blazer and tie with gray slacks sitting on a brown wooden chair with gray upholstery.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: As if he had called ahead to make sure he dressed for maximum camouflage.

 

RICH LEVINE: Martin’s leaning hard on his elbow, like he wants to whisper a secret into Hickman’s ear but also like he might pass out.

 

FRED HICKMAN: And, Martin, let’s talk about it right now. You’ve watched these teams all season long. Surprises in the Eastern Conference–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It’s a coin flip. 50/50. Legacy on the line. Martin gathers himself, ready to speak.

 

RICH LEVINE: On the next episode of Chasing Basketball Heaven.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I not only don’t want to be the same as everyone else. I don’t want to be the same as anyone else. I’m not gonna do what everyone else does just because they do it.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Our friend Martin gets closer to the truth.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: Never again would I be in the dark about which player really deserved the headlines.

 

RICH LEVINE: But can you be a leader if no one follows you?

 

MARTIN MANLEY: My dream, of course, was and is that not only I could be enlightened, but so could basketball fans everywhere.

 

RICH LEVINE: Chasing Basketball Heaven is a 30 for 30 Podcast produced by ESPN, Hyperobject Industries, and Meadowlark Media.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It was reported and hosted by Nick Altschuller and Rich Levine with Craig Kilborn as the voice of Martin Manley.

 

RICH LEVINE: Executive Producers from Hyperobject Industries and Meadowlark Media are Adam McKay, Clare Slaughter, and Bradley Campbell.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Senior Editorial Producer for 30 for 30 Podcasts is Preeti Varathan.

 

RICH LEVINE: The series senior producer is Raghu Manavalan.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The series Producer is Gus Navarro.

 

RICH LEVINE: Consulting producer Gary Hoenig.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Story Editors were Jamie York and Mac Montandon.

 

RICH LEVINE: Sound Design and mixing by John DeLore.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Theme song composed by Allison Leyton-Brown and John DeLore.

 

RICH LEVINE: Show art by Brian Lutz.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Fact-checking by Matt Giles and David Sabino.

 

RICH LEVINE: For 30 for 30 and ESPN, line producer is Catherine Sankey.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Associate Producer is Isabella Seman.

 

RICH LEVINE: Production Assistants are Diamante McKelvie and Anthony Salas.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Producer is Carolyn Hepburn.

 

RICH LEVINE: Senior Producers are Marquis Daisy and Gentry Kirby.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Heather Anderson, Marsha Cooke, Brian Lockhart, and Burke Magnus are Executive Producers for 30 for 30.

 

RICH LEVINE: Rights and clearances by Jennifer Thorpe and Kaal Griffith.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: This podcast was developed by Tara Nadolny and Cynthia Paribello.

 

RICH LEVINE: To listen to more sports series like this one, search “30 for 30 Podcasts” wherever you listen to podcasts or find us at 30for30Podcasts.com. Thanks for listening.