WASHINGTON — Once relegated to playgrounds and pickup games, 3-on-3 basketball is having a moment.
Two separate touring exhibitions of the sport are making their ways around the country this summer, and it has been added as a new sport for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The world of 3-on-3 sweeps through the District this weekend, as Dew NBA 3X makes a stop in Navy Yard as the fourth of its six-stop, nationwide tour (if weather forces the action indoors, it will move to Trinity University in Northeast).
In its second year, Dew NBA 3X is a tour put on by the NBA, featuring preselected teams battling it out for regional titles and a chance to go to the national title game in Los Angeles to compete for $20,000.
Each team has at least one former Division I or Division II player, so the talent level exceeds your average pickup game. Along with new Washington Wizard Tim Frazier, former U.Va. star and current Milwaukee Buck Malcom Brogdon will be in attendance this weekend.
“Events like this allow people who love the game — that love watching, that love playing — to continue to be involved some type of way,” Brogdon told WTOP. “I think it keeps basketball relevant after the finals have ended.”
The WNBA has long tried to capitalize on professional men’s basketball’s summer break, but the 3-on-3 format seems to lend itself especially to summer.
Often played outdoors, the games are far shorter and more compact than the 2 and 1/2 hour pro game, stuffed full of quick possessions and highlights.
It’s a different version of the same game, but one that is being appreciated on a larger scale than ever before.
“Basketball doesn’t just have to be five-on-five,” said Brogdon. “Three-on-three is sort of the next stop for how people have always played the game competitively. I think it’s about the right time for it to be taken to the next level, for people to take it serious and play it on the Olympic level.”
It’s an idea that fellow U.Va. star and Good Counsel graduate Roger Mason Jr. had been kicking around for some years before an opportunity landed at his doorstep. After Mason’s playing career — which included two stops with the Wizards — he joined the NBA Players Association, where he served as deputy executive director.
Once the new collective bargaining agreement was hammered out last year, he decided the time was right for a leap of faith — to start a new professional 3-on-3 league.
“During the 2011 lockout, I thought about how cool it would be,” Mason told WTOP. “Ultimately, I believed in 3-on-3 basketball and our ability to make this league legitimate.”
That league is Big3, backed by Allen Iverson and Ice Cube, and Mason is its inaugural commissioner.
Chock-full of former NBA stars, it also tours the country, but has the same eight teams playing at each stop, making their way through a schedule that will include playoffs and a championship in Las Vegas later this summer. The touring model looks more like that of a musical act than a sports league, which makes sense, considering its founders.
“The idea is to give every city this one show, once a year,” said Mason.
While Big3 will visit New York, Chicago and Los Angeles this year, it will not swing through D.C. The league will make stops in smaller markets like Tulsa, Charlotte and Lexington, Kentucky. Part of that has to do with the league’s television deal with Fox Sports, as some markets correlate to the network’s local affiliates.
“Every year, we take a fresh look at the cities we have to play in,” said Mason.
Dew NBA 3X made it to Washington in its second year. Does that mean we could see Big3 in D.C. next summer?
“We’d love to come to Verizon Center,” said Mason. “We have so many players with D.C. ties.”
Brogdon understands the city’s passion for the game, one which is evidenced by the preponderance of talent constantly making its way from the DMV to the NBA. He’s hoping that passion will make this weekend’s event a good fit here.
“You look at the amount of No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the NBA Draft that have come from this area, and it’s pretty amazing,” he said. “They have a lot of talent every year and guys who go to the NBA and do great things every year.”
