The importance of 3x3 basketball at the Olympic Games

You may have read some bad omens in these days of the Olympic Games in Paris. Bad taste, but perhaps really premonitory in view of Los Angeles 2028. After all, the scenarios and settings that the French capital is giving us cannot be matched by the Californian West Coast in four summers' time: Remco Evenepoel spreading his arms wide with the Eiffel Tower towering in the background, dressage at the Chateau de Versailles. And again the same Parisian symbol almost observing beach volleyball from above, fencing at the Grand Palais. Not forgetting the marvellous surfing setting in French Polynesia, with even a minke whale emerging from the water to enjoy the show. The 3x3 basketball tournaments didn't do too badly either. As for skateboarding, they opted to have the action take place at Place de la Concorde. Yet another, yet another historical location.

For both of them, a location that is indeed historic but in contradiction to what they bring with them: the primitive essence of living the sport in the street, peeling knees and elbows on the concrete. Whether it's to dunk or to stick the trick of the day. A further common factor between these two sports is that they are being shown to the general public for the first time at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, in what is turning out to be a real revolution - and this time it has nothing to do with the 1700s.

If we also line up the innovative introduction of breaking, the clues become too many not to result in conclusive proof: the International Olympic Committee is broadening its horizons, and has set off in a sporting direction that does not have to involve gyms or swimming pools for the various Olympic disciplines. Emancipating itself from Mum 5x5, which has always been tied to enclosed spaces, 3x3 basketball also brings with it the freedom of playing outdoors.

As if all this were not enough, this is a discipline that, in order: it is watchable, entertaining and has so far brought with it that hint of unpredictability and competitive madness. Suffice it to say that, in contrast to the men's and women's basketball tournaments played first in Lille and now in Bercy, the US delegation in this Parisian summer has reaped little in the way of the usual dominant ambitions of the stars and stripes. The bronze medal won by Cierra Burdick, Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard (former Famila Schio) and Hailey Van Lith leaves a bitter aftertaste, and perhaps the alibi linked to the absence of the second choice at the last WNBA Draft Cameron Brink, winner of the 3x3 World Championships last year in Vienna but injured just before Paris 2024, is not enough. Certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, is the result drawn by their male colleagues and compatriots: the quartet consisting of Jimmer Fredette, Canyon Barry (Rick Barry's son, and in fact he shoots free throws from the low post like his father), Kareem Maddox and Dylan Travis returns home without any metal around their necks. It must be said that the premises were not the best: overall, the two American teams started their respective tournaments with a nightmarish 0-7. Then, if the former bounced back with five consecutive victories before losing in the semifinals to Spain, the star-studded men's 3x3 ended before the knockout stage, losing badly (15-6) to the Netherlands. In hindsight, that might have been the appetiser to a three-Michelin-starred dinner for the Oranje, who climbed onto the Olympic roof.

Getting acquainted with 3x3 basketball, if you are used to the classic 5vs5, is not straightforward. Of course, the basic concept remains the same: you score by getting the ball into the opponent's basket, and whoever scores the most points wins the game. But already in chapter 1.1 of the basketball bible there is a discordant element with the innovative discipline that has recently completed its second Olympic debut. The concept of an 'opponent's basket' does not exist, because you only play on one half of the court, with an 11x15 court.

You can win a 3x3 basketball game by scoring 21 points, or by being ahead of your opponent at the end of the usual 10 minutes of play. There are no quarters, everything is much more immediate, frenetic, fun for some. Forget about 'two' or 'three' shots, which turn into 'one' or 'two' shots respectively, always with the same mechanism: inside the 6.75 metre line, the basket is worth less. All this is not only to give an introduction to those who are confronted with such a discipline for the first time, but also to tell the symbolic story of this Olympiad in court basketball.

Until the end of the 2022-23 season, Worthy De Jong was always a 'classic' basketball player. A pretty good one too, given that he trailed his ZZ Leiden to the BNXT League title as MVP of the finals in 2021-22, and given his 16.4 points per game offensive production with the Dutch national team at EuroBasket 2022. But then he decided he wanted to make history for real, and rode the wave of a growing movement in the Netherlands, with outdoor basketball courts popping up like tulips. In the final against the French hosts, he first forced overtime, and then closed it out in his own way, rising from the arc for the triple (worth two in this case) of victory. An unhoped-for gold on the eve of the game for the Netherlands, who arrived in France with the ambition to do well. Well, they did very well. Also thanks to the collapse of another national team, itself historic three years ago in Tokyo: Latvia, who as reigning Olympic champions lost the final for bronze to their neighbour Lithuania. A state with, unlike the winners in orange, a decades-long basketball tradition. From today, with a hint of innovation.

If the Netherlands, with the aforementioned 36-year-old Worthy De Jong, Jan Driessen, Dimeo van der Horst and Alvin Slagter, have written an indelible page of their basketball, the same can be said of Germany. In the golden epic of Teutonic basketball, with bronze at EuroBasket 2022 and gold at the 2023 World Championship for the men's 5x5 national team, the women's 3x3 also showed the world, winning an Olympic victory against an equally surprising Spain. Sonja Greinacher, MVP and leader of her team, together with Svenja Brunckhorst, Marie Reichert and Elisa Mevius, signed another important chapter in the dream novel of contemporary German basketball. Looking to the future, of course.

Because if 3x3 basketball has taught its audience - whether new or 'transported by 5x5' it doesn't matter so much - anything before Tokyo 2020 and then Paris 2024, it is that it is destined to stay and grow. In terms of popularity, of new athletes or players who may feel more akin to the spaces, rhythms, and customs of a different basketball, perhaps closer to everyone. To those who spend the afternoon shooting under the house, that one basket is enough. Just one, the one in which a two-point shot can give you an Olympic gold medal two steps away from the Louvre.