re: Modern NBA defenses are so tough

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What I heard was they moved it back because too many bad shooters were taking 3s

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I found a funny quote that fits perfectly into the modern discussion, from the time of inception of the 3 pointer:

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"You have to tell your players to remember who the shooters are, and when those guys are 25 feet from the basket, get in their jocks and guard them," former ABA and NBA coach Hubie Brown said in Loose Balls. "Don't give them the 25-footer, which is something players had been conditioned to do all their lives. And as a coach, if you have a shooter with range, you have to give him the freedom to take the 25-footer, which is a philosophy that goes against what you learned as a young coach--namely, pound the ball inside."

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Hubie Brown, one of the GOAT basketball minds. The issues he references from the 60s basically applied in the NBA until about 2017.

Now, the revolution in developing skill in big men did predate that a bit, both from the introduction of skilled Euro bigs to the demolishing of Ben Wallace in the 2002 FIBA World Championshps, when the NBA learned that the plodding, unskilled bigs had no place in a developing game. The final step in this was the Roy Hibbert saga,

Why the NBA abandoned Roy Hibbert

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Yet five years later, Hibbert, one of the best rim protectors in basketball, is out of the league.

How does that happen? How does a former All-Star and recent defensive player of the year runner-up — who’s 31, presumably still physically healthy and still has an elite skill that is always in demand at this level — find himself nudged out of the NBA in such quick fashion?

The league learned new tricks, and Hibbert didn’t.

“It’s surprising to me. I’ve talked to Roy about this, but he could still be playing in the league right now,” said Frank Vogel, Hibbert’s former coach in Indiana, who was recently let go by the Magic. “But the league has adapted, both big picture and in terms of what he was doing for us in Indiana. There’s been a severe evolution in how the league plays, and he’s been a victim of it.”

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Yet as Hibbert continued to protect the rim well, that skill by itself became less valuable in a changing NBA. Take, for example, the Pacers’ 2014 playoff series against No. 8 seed Atlanta, in which the Hawks surprisingly took top-seeded Indiana to seven games.

Atlanta, which would go on to win 60 games the following season, exposed the Pacers’ defensive scheme (and thus Hibbert’s shortcomings) by playing lineups in which all five players could shoot from the perimeter. Much like a dog who’s bound by the constraints of an electric fence, Hibbert opts to stay tethered beneath the free-throw line on defense when he can, both so he can shut down shots at the rim and because his mobility isn’t good enough to defend in open space. The Hawks nearly stole a series because of it.

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Hibbert going from defensive stud to unplayable in one offseason was the start of the current era of the NBA.