Make the NBA Great Again
9 NBA rule changes to make basketball even better. Or just stupider.
- Added Time
I’m particularly proud of this one. Each team gets 3 opportunities per season to add 1 second to the game clock at any point at which the game has not yet ended. For example, if there’s .8 seconds left in regulation in the 4th quarter, a team can apply an opportunity, assuming they have any remaining, and increase the time to 1.8 seconds. Super Hypothetical Scenario (SHS): NBA Finals Game 7. You’re down 3 with .2 seconds left in the 4th quarter. According to the Tucker rule, .2 seconds is only enough time for a tip-in. You can’t quite tip it in from behind the three point line unless you’re Mariusz Pudzianowski, so essentially you’re screwed.
Enter added time. You apply the opportunity, raising the time left in regulation to 1.2 seconds, giving you enough time to launch a good look from three point land, tie the game, win the chip in OT, and host a poorly planned victory parade.
If a team uses none of these added time opportunities throughout the season and makes the playoffs, they get to add 1 extra minute to any playoff game as long as they decide to do so with atleast 6 minutes left in regulation.
Imagine how much this rule would screw up coaches’ gameplans. The mystery of whether a team would apply a chance or want to save one and how to balance this would be quite a dilemma to observe. We’d really get to weed out the top notch coaches from the rest of the pack.
2. Alley Oops are worth 3 points.
Who doesn’t want to see more of these? To qualify as an alley oop, the receiving player must have both feet off of the ground before catching the pass and the passing player must have intended for it to be a pass rather than a shot attempt. If this somehow goes through, we might be looking at Deandre Jordan as the league’s leading scorer.
This would also make late game scenarios much more interesting. If you’re down by 3 with .2 seconds or less left, the Tucker Rule would have screwed you in past times. With this rule though, a quick inbound lob to your most athletic player could send the game to OT.
3. Adopt Bill Simmons’ Entertaining As Hell Tournament
First, we lower the amount of games in the season from 82 games to 76 games. I’ll let Simmons take it from here.
“Entertaining as Hell Tournament — the top seven seeds in each conference make the playoffs, then the other 16 teams play a single-elimination tournament to “win” the no. 8 seeds. This would discourage tanking for lottery picks, reward late-bloomer teams and generate extra interest because, again, this tournament would be entertaining as hell. All 14 games would be televised — eight in Round 1, four in Round 2, then a doubleheader final at Madison Square Garden to decide the no. 8 seeds — over a week as the other 14 playoff teams regrouped and rested up.”
This would basically be the NBA version of March Madness. Try thinking of something more awesome.
4. Rest Penalty
If a team rests any of its top 3 MPG averagers for any nationally televised game before game 72, the team loses an extra second opportunity. If they’ve already used all their chances up, then they would start the next year with only 2 instead of 3. In addition, the resting players would not be compensated for the game they sat out. This compensation in turn, would be totaled up and distributed equally amongst the fans in attendance. Unless Pop wants to rest his guys. He can do whatever he wants.
5. Each Team in the Winning All Star Game Conference gets an Added Extra Time Opportunity
Maybe we’d see some semblance of defense then. Also, each player on the losing team gets brutally heckled by the PA during their next nationally televised game — using fan-voted insults.
6. NBA First Round Shortened to 5 Games
Can this go into effect already? Nobody wants to see the Warriors whale on the Blazers for 4 games straight. And we don’t want to see a downward choking spiral from the Clippers stretched out for 7 games again.
7. No Jump Balls except for the Opening Tip
Bringing the Roman Colosseum to the NBA. If two players are fighting for the ball, the one who rips it gets the ball. Fouls can be called but if no foul occurs, let continue the ripping. I’m curious as to what the NBA record for time needed to rip a ball from the opponent would be. I can imagine Lebron and Draymond at it for upwards of 25 seconds trying to rip it from each other as time expires, sending Game 7 of the Finals to OT.
8. Shots from beyond the half court line worth 4 points
Why not? It would redefine crunch-time strategy. If a team’s down 4 late in the game, do they take a quick two or three and then play the fouling game — or do they try their luck from beyond the 4 point line? Again another conundrum for NBA coaches but something that would be awesome for spectators. And if a team is down by 15 or 20 plus in the fourth, at what point do they just start launching half court bombs every possession? And would it become something teams would regularly practice for emergency scenarios? Similar to how we’re currently seeing a 3point revolution, does there ever come a time when an entire wave of Curry-esque bombers emerges and we see a 4point revolution?
Questions abound.
We’d even get a stat for 4 point field goal percentage. My guess is that the leader in this category would either be Steph or Chris Paul.
9. Don’t Fine the Refs
This wouldn’t consitute a change as the NBA currently doesn’t fine its referees for incorrect or missed calls. But in light of overexposure of referee mistakes, hordes are calling for refs to be fined just as players are. Okay — you would be penalizing them for making a bad call- but it wouldn’t change the quality of reffing whatsoever. The refs, no matter what you may think, don’t make bad calls on purpose. So the prospect of a fine will change absolutely nothing — maybe it’ll even cause the ref to be hesitant in late game situations, omitting clear calls from fear of being fined.
All that fining the refs would do is take away money from men who are just trying to do their job rather than actually improve the quality of the reffing. I’ll probably scratch this one the next time the refs screw over the Knicks though.
