Three Rules the NBA Should Change
1) Abolish the “over-and-back” rule
The over-and-back rule is a vestige of the pre-shot clock era when teams would stall with a lead and try to run minutes off the clock in a single possession. Given the NBA’s 24-second shot clock, it is now mostly pointless and sometimes slightly harmful. It’s the appendix of the NBA rulebook (figuratively…and probably literally).
What would happen if we got rid of it? Well, mostly nothing. The only circumstance where a rational team would take the ball past half court and then deliberately go backwards is when they are attempting to run out the clock. Yes, it would be tougher for the other team to foul or trap, but who cares? Let’s open up the court for the best athletes in the world and see what happens. The most time a team can run off the clock is 24-seconds anyway.
Otherwise, it almost never comes into play, but when it does it seems so arbitrary and unnecessary. When a team accidentally throws the ball into the backcourt, why not let them chase it down and then hustle back up the court to beat the shot clock? Wouldn’t this be better to watch than the offending team’s point guard casually jogging next to the ball as it rolls in the backcourt while everyone in the stadium waits for him to touch it so the referee can blow his whistle and call the turnover that has already happened?
Even worse, sometimes the call isn’t so easy to make, as seen below. Regardless of whether or not the “correct” call was eventually made, why on earth is the referee put in a position to blow his whistle at all in this scenario?
Finally, it’s been ruining NBA video games for decades. My best friend from up the street, my brother, and I must have played 10,000 hours of NBA Live 95 and the first thing we always did was turn off the back court rule. this lead to countless three-quarter-court heaves from Rex Chapman which somehow always at least hit the rim. Let’s make this a thing of the past:
(And yes, this was before I read “Outliers” and realized those 10,000 hours could have been put towards something incredibly useful. So it goes.)
2) Adopt the FIBA goal tending rule
In international play, as soon as a field goal attempt hits the rim it becomes a live ball. This differs from the NBA rule, where as long as the ball is over the cylinder neither the offensive nor defensive player is allowed to touch it.
This rule was a major factor in the Clippers/Spurs series. At the very end of game five, DeAndre Jordan was called for offensive goal tending on what would have likely been the winning basket (sorry for the poor quality):
The referees made the correct call in this instance, but many times over the course of a season when they don’t have the benefit of replay do they get it wrong? (more on this later.) It’s a very tough call to make and adopting the FIBA rules would make it much easier.
More importantly, don’t we want to see the NBA players playing above the rim as much as possible? I’d love to watch a Chris Paul three pointer bounce high off the cylinder while Blake Griffin crashes the boards looking for a dunk with no inhibition and Dwight Howard simultaneously jumps to swat it away like a volleyball.
We have enough data from international play to prove this would be a positive change — let’s make it!
3) Expand the last two minute off-the-ball intentional foul rule to the entire game
This has probably been the single most discussed issue surrounding this year’s NBA playoffs — which in of itself is a very strong argument for change.
I have what I believe to be an iron clad argument for a fix, but before I get to it, I want to ask a very simple question:
What is the virtue of a free throw?
Why do we talk about free throws like they are sacred tenant of basketball and morality? How many announcers have you heard say something like, “All across the country kids are watching this and then going out and practicing their free throws, and that is a good thing.”
Why is practicing free throw shooting any better than practicing shots from other areas of the court or other skills like dribbling, passing, and defense? Is there something about shooting a straight on shot from 15 feet away with no defense that keeps kids away from drugs?
And what kind of argument is that? Twenty years from now when all of these kids finally make it to the NBA we won’t have to sit around and watch a 3-hour game with 45 missed free throws? Why don’t we just fix this problem now?
The NBA already has a rule in the last two minutes of the game that lets the other team pick their free throw shooter if one of their players is fouled intentionally off the ball. This has been 99.99% effective in eliminating intentional off-the-ball fouls at the very end of games.
So on to my iron clad argument: If we’ve all agreed that in the last two minutes of the game we need to get rid of this behavior, why do we allow it at all? If we don’t want to see something when the game is really on the line, why do we ever want to see it? If you can’t answer that question, any other argument you have is void.
The referees have expanded instant replay capabilities in the last two minutes in order to make sure they get every call correct when the game is on the line. The reason they don’t have these for whole game is simple: it would slow things down and decrease the quality of the product. Nobody wants to see the referees huddled around that tiny monitor 34 times a game with the clocked stopped.
So what’s the reason we don’t expand the off-the-ball foul rule from the last two minutes to the entire game? To ensure we slow things down and decrease the quality of the product? Does anyone really want to see DeAndre Jordan take 34 free throws in a playoff game with the clock stopped?
And really Mark Cuban? You watched minute-to-minute TV ratings and have been able to conclude people aren’t tuning out? I’m going to let you refute yourself on this one:
