The Unintended Consequences of the NBA’s Rule Changes
Adam Silver is the progressive commissioner we need, not the one we deserve.
According to NBA.com’s press release, the league’s Board of Governors unanimously approved the competition committee’s recommendations to reduce the number of timeouts, standardize halftime lengths, and “limit the wandering of free throw shooters. Another shake up, albeit a less significant one, is that the trade deadline will be moved up to ten days before the All-Star break instead of ten days after.
Now, each team will have seven timeouts apiece, instead of the previous standard of nine. Each “team timeout” will now be 75 seconds long, as opposed to either a 90 or 20 second break. And, most importantly, each team can only call two timeouts in the final three minutes of a game.
The changes are an effort by the NBA to improve the pace and flow of each game, especially in the final two minutes.
“What we heard from our fans and heard from many of our teams was that the ends of games in particular were too choppy,” Commissioner Silver said. “I think since I was a kid, people have been talking about the last two minutes of our game.”
“We think these new changes will have a significant impact, especially at the end of the game” Silver added.
This criticism was real and it was justified. A game with 45 seconds left can take up to 15 minutes to conclude. While there is some suspense and drama in dragging out an ending, it was too excessive.
While the NBA’s gameplay is choppy with TV timeouts, dead balls, and timeouts, it is nothing compared to the MLB’s pace — the average baseball game lasts just under 3 hours, which is actually shorter than an NFL game. Its rhythm bests the NFL too, where there’s a commercial break after every kickoff, scoring play and change of possession in addition to scheduled TV timeouts.
The NBA will still have two stoppages each quarter for TV timeouts — at the first stoppages after seven minutes and after three minutes — but the league eliminated the under-nine minute TV timeout in the second and fourth quarters.
There will be more uninterrupted action for every viewer involved, whether they’re watching in the arena or tuning in at home.
Objectively, every single one of the new rules should make a positive impact on the game. That doesn’t mean they won’t create unintended consequences.
Great X’s and O’s coaches, such as Brad Stevens, Erik Spoelstra, and Steve Kerr, are disproportionally affected by the reduction of timeouts. The impact they can make on a game by drawing out of timeout plays, either inbounds or half-court sets, has been decreased. Stevens loves saving his timeouts for the crucial plays down the stretch of games. He’s notorious for extending games by fouling, getting extra possessions, and calling timeouts to draw up a play for an easy bucket.
Stevens and Spoelstra will still find ways to influence the outcome of games. The smartest coaches will strategically use their seven timeouts in unique ways under the new rules. They will have to make every single call count, though, because they have none to waste.
As Paolo Uggetti of The Ringer said, the “whiteboard masterminds” won’t have as many opportunities to “work their magic.” More of the responsibility now, without an abundance of huddles, is on veteran players and floor generals to organize their teams in pressure situations. This is neither good nor bad for the league, but it certainly hurts the Celtics.
Additionally, the rules make it more challenging for superstars to stay on the court. Without stoppages, every minute becomes slightly more intense for the players asked to perform at a high level on a heavy minutes load.
Again, this is neither good or bad for the league, but it affects some teams differently than others. Will LeBron James still be physically able to play 46 minutes in the pivotal Game 7 of the Finals? He’s probably an alien, so it’s possible, but without stoppages in play, it will be harder. Coaches already rest their star players strategically around TV timeouts, but that option is getting tougher.
Along the same lines, there will naturally be more of an emphasis on bench players, especially in the regular season, as coaches protect their stars from a physically taxing 82-game schedule. Role guys will likely play more minutes to give the starters a break. This stress on bench production will help deep teams (Denver, Milwaukee, Miami) and teams with great systems (Golden State, San Antonio), but could potentially decimate teams that rely on their starters like Washington and Cleveland. As Uggetti points out, staggering the minutes of stars becomes even more important (ATTN: Scott Brooks).
The NBA is lucky not to be run by a power-hungry tyrant or an incompetent buffoon prone to work stoppages; instead it is led by Adam Silver, a forward-thinking intellectual who is not afraid to shake up the game to improve it. And he definitely would never suspend LeBron James a quarter of a season for a misdemeanor he never actually did.
