Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were rookies. Bill Walton’s move to the Clippers — the San Diego Clippers — was making headlines. Some N.B.A. finals games were still being broadcast on tape delay. And the league tried something new in the 1979-80 season: a 3-point shot.
Its debut was inauspicious. The New York Times’s season preview called the shot a “gimmick” twice in the first two paragraphs. “It may change our game at the end of the quarters,” Suns Coach John MacLeod allowed. “But I’m not going to set up plays for guys to bomb from 23 feet.