Larry Bird believes 4-point line is worth considering

With the number of three-pointers climbing at a historical rate for the better half of two decades, the debate has now begun on whether the NBA should consider introducing a four-point line.

While many NBA purists are very much against the idea, former Boston Celtics great and current Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird believes the concept is at least worth considering.

"We didn’t gravitate to the three at first," Larry Bird told Charles Bethea of the New Yorker Friday. "We weren’t like, Oh boy, here it is! No, it takes time. When they first put it in, some team took five three-pointers a game and that was a lot.” This season, teams averaged more than twenty-four attempts, many of them taken from well beyond the arc."

Not only are teams shooting threes at a more frequent rate, but they're also doing it at a high rate of efficiency.

In 2015-16, players hit 36.7 percent of their shots beyond the arc - the most since its introduction in the 1979-80 season.

"It’s funny how the game has changed," Bird added. "And my thinking about it. I was really worried—back sixteen, seventeen years ago—that the little guy didn’t have a spot in the N.B.A. anymore: it was just going to be the big guards like Magic Johnson. But then players started shooting more threes and spacing the court, and everyone wants small guards now. My era, you always think that’s the greatest era. But I’m not so sure anymore."