Basketball junkies have their eyes set on the summer of 2020. That’s the next time we’ll get to see the highest level of international hoops, as teams from all over the world will descend on Tokyo for the Summer Olympics. Still, basketball at the Olympics has been a bit boring in recent years — on both the men’s and women’s sides, the United States tends to dominate the proceedings.
That may be the case again in 2020. What remains to be seen, though, is whether the United States will be able to dominate in the newest Olympic basketball endeavor: 3×3. Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Chris Mullin sees, at the very least, a way for the playing field to be leveled, with 3×3 serving as a way to get “back to the purest, most fundamental form of basketball.”
“Skill level becomes a little more emphasized than just the size, strength, speed,” Mullin said. “There’s a way to combat that which happens a little bit in five-on-five. But in 3×3, taking those other two players out, eliminates weak side defenders. And it also emphasizes if you’re left open, you can’t shoot, you are going to be exposed. So it’s probably more of a well-rounded basketball player from a skill standpoint as opposed to just give me the tallest, longest guy that can jump the highest.”
Mullin is prominently involved in 3×3. The former St. John’s coach serves as an ambassador for the sport, and is part of Thursday’s announcement between USA Basketball and Red Bull. The two sides revealed a partnership, one that looks to “build an elite pathway for men’s and women’s players who have a goal of competing at the highest levels of 3×3 basketball.”
The uniqueness of 3×3 at the Olympic level is twofold. One is in the rules: It’s a game to 21 by 1s and 2s, but there’s a 10-minute clock with a 12-second shot clock, and if neither squad hits the 21-point mark by the time the game clock hits zero, the squad with the most points wins. The other is that countries don’t necessarily punch their tickets by winning qualification tournaments. Instead, a system exists that incentivizes playing in as many tournaments as possible, one in which points are accrued to increase your country’s standing internationally.
“We and all the national federations are going to get points based on 100 people from our country playing in this three on three ecosystems,” says Jim Tooley, the CEO of USA Basketball. “And so we don’t know if that is going to be 20 million points, 30 million points, but we are going to have to play in a lot of events to earn points so that we qualify.”
When scanning the international rankings for both men and women, the United States is not in its usual position at the very top. The men’s squad sits at in eighth, while the women are in 33rd. It is a tad antithetical to the basketball exceptionalism that exists stateside, but that’s where Red Bull comes in.
The partnership between the two sides looks to help the U.S. make it to Tokyo. Red Bull will launch the Red Bull 3X series, a collection of 20 nationwide qualifying tournaments looking to provide a pathway to becoming the USA Basketball representatives at the Olympics. Winning squads will compete at the the Red Bull USA Basketball 3X Regionals come this fall, with the collection of players that will represent the United States being determined at the Red Bull USA Basketball 3X Nationals next March.
“They are not our events, they are running the events,” Tooley says. “So they are giving us a gigantic ecosystem from which we can draw upon half of our athlete pool, and so it’s really unique, it’s ground breaking. It’s really critical for the success of us, our pathway. So we are very fortunate.”
Here’s the schedule for the qualifiers, which run throughout the summer:
Detroit, June 22
Washington, D.C., June 29
Atlanta, June 29
Brooklyn, July 13
Minneapolis, July 13
Los Angeles, July 20
New Orleans, July 20
Philadelphia, July 27
Denver, July 27
Milwaukee, August 3
Oakland, August 3
Chicago, August 17
Houston, August 17
Cleveland, August 24
Raleigh, August 24
Dallas, August 31
Boston, September 7
Memphis, September 7
San Antonio, September 14
Salt Lake City, TBD
Portland, TBD
Phoenix, TBD
Seattle, TBD
Of course, the important thing is making sure a certain archetype of player fits into the 3×3 game. The nature of qualifying, both in how it occurs and when it occurs (although I would love for someone to ask Gregg Popovich about one of his players taking time away from the Spurs to gun for a roster spot) for the Olympics means that it’s not as easy as seeing which players make the 5-on-5 squad, then picking the next three people who miss out to play 3×3. That, in Tooley’s estimation, is what makes this new venture so appealing.
“I think FIBA looks at this from a new generation of player that they want,” Tooley says. “They want others, because being in the NBA is a pretty limited opportunity, so this is another opportunity for a wider range of people. So I think they’re looking at it as just brooding the horizons of the sport, getting the sport in countries that it would not otherwise be in. So I think they would say, the success of the Olympic games are 3×3 are not hinged on unnecessarily who plays, but the fact that there will be new opportunities for a lot of people who would not have had it otherwise.”
At the end of the day, it’s more basketball, with the possibility for parity that might not exist in the 5-on-5 game due to the rapid, fast-paced nature of the games. Like all new ventures, no one has any idea what to really expect, both in terms of who will win and which countries and players will even get the opportunity to compete next summer. And as Mullin knows as well as anyone, being in on the ground floor of a new approach to Olympic hoops provides the opportunity to do something unforgettable.
“It is similar to when the Dream Team … 1984 was, in my mind, the only time I was going to be able to participate in the Olympics,” Mullin said. “One time only, and then eight years later, the rules changed. So, now, the rules change here. It’s going to explode.”
