Here’s How To Make The NBA Good Again
While I am a die-hard NBA fan, there is no denying that there are a lot of problems in the game. There are dumb rules, there’s so much down time, and the schedule is grueling on the players. And don’t get me started with the officiating. But imagine, if for one day, I became the commissioner of the NBA. I got to make the rules. No more Adam Silver, I would get to change the NBA in ways that would make the NBA better, because it desperately needs to improve.
Refereeing
The main thing wrong with the NBA is refereeing. The inconsistency, the technical fouls, the reviewing, there’s a lot to go over with the refereeing. Here’s what I would change.
Technical Fouls
Technical fouls are getting out of hand. I get the premise of technical fouls, I don’t think they’re bad if they’re used right. If a player is repeatedly complaining to the refs, I get it. If a few players start getting into it, it may lead to a fight, technical fouls are useful to calm down a situation, or defuse something that can happen in the future.
But you can’t just use them willy-nilly, like they’re candy. Jayson Tatum got a technical this season after he got called for a foul, he bounced the ball really high in the air. Come on, man. He’s allowed to have a reaction to the call, he didn’t say anything to the ref, didn’t affect anybody. Life moves on, no need for a technical in that spot.
Luka Doncic almost got suspended for a game because he reached that 16-technical foul limit. One of his technicals, he got for yelling “And-one.” Again, really not affecting anybody. He didn’t swear, he likely didn’t talk directly to the referee, no need for a technical.
But the one that really should make you puzzle humanity as a whole is the one technical foul Luka Doncic got in a game against the Sacramento Kings. With 31.8 seconds left, the Mavericks had already lost the game. He walked over to the scorers table and it didn’t look like he said much, maybe he said something. But whatever it was, he was just ejected.
This is wrong on a lot of levels. First of all, the game’s over. Why do you care at all as a referee? Unless he said something really bad, which I doubt, then there’s no basis for ejecting him.
That Luka ejected shows what’s wrong with referee’s. They take everything personal, they call technical fouls for no reason, which just ends up causing more problems. Here’s my solution. Only call technical fouls if you absolutely have to. If a player starts talking to you, ignore it. If it happens multiple times, abrasive language, sure that’s a technical foul. If they’re repeatedly complaining, slowing down the game, I can agree with that technical.
But don’t give a player a technical the one time they yell at you. Also, don’t give players a longer or shorter leash based on reputation. Don’t assess a situation involving Draymond Green and Lebron James differently. No matter the player, the stature, you give a technical if necessary.
Technical fouls have become a lot messier than they should have been. Referees don’t talk to players, they seem to think there has to be a divide. Players and refs are supposed to be on the same side. Players want to know what the line is, so they can avoid crossing it. Giving them technicals willy-nilly creates animosity and players and refs don’t get along. There’s no reason for that, just simply don’t use them as much.
Fouls/Foul Baiting/Inconsistencies
There are 3 main thing about actual refereeing that annoy me;
1. The amount of fouls in a regular season game. I don’t want to see 30 free throws per game for each team. It slows down the game unnecessarily.
2. The inconsistencies you see from ref to ref. A foul shouldn’t be called differently from ref to ref. The game should be called the same no matter the referee.
3. Foul Baiting. The thing that seemingly everybody does, it’s incredibly annoying. Steve Nash was right when he said it wasn’t basketball, it isn’t. You’re not trying to play the game, you’re trying to bait fouls from 35 feet out. It needs to stop.
When I watch any sort of international basketball or the Olympics, I love it. It’s so much more physical, more passing, more team basketball. There is actually defense because people want to play for their country, there’s real pride in that. There’s no defense in the NBA and it becomes so much harder to guard people when you call every single bit of contact.
My problem is that there’s too many foul called, so why not just call every game the same? Call every game like it’s a NBA Finals game. I don’t want to see each team shoot 20-30 free throws. I want teams to average 10-20 free throws a game, max. 15 is a good medium. This reduces the stoppages in a game and it’s more fun to see physical basketball. FIBA has a more physical style of play, why not the NBA?
The inconsistencies in referees is also an easy fix. Just let the game be a little bit more physical. Call regular games like playoff games. Nobody will be against that. I hate when we have super sensitive refs and then you have the normal refs who might let a foul here and there go. And then we look at the normal ref and say, “why aren’t you calling anything?” Just have all the refs allow some contact. It’s an easy adjustment for refs and players, it solves a lot of problems.
Finally, foul baiting. Now, the NBA did release a statement where they said this wouldn’t be allowed next season. That’s great, but I have to see it to believe it. Jumping into a defender isn’t basketball. Steve Nash was absolutely right when he said that. You’re not trying to score, you’re just trying to draw fouls.
I have no problem if a player sells a little bit of contact. But actively seeking out contact from like 40 feet from the basket isn’t basketball. There’s a difference between selling contact after you drove to the rim instead of just stopping coming off of a screen 35 feet away from the hoop.
I really hope that the NBA means what they said about no foul baiting. I know it’s easy to say guys like Trae Young and Luka Doncic are annoying, but the rule was bad in the first place. Getting rid of the rule in the first place gets rid of the negative stigmas that we give to players for simply taking advantage of a terrible, terrible rule that is hopefully going to go away.
The NBA Refereeing Problem is something that affects the game a lot, but can be fixed quite easily. Foul baiting, easily one of the most annoying things you see nowadays in the NBA, is likely to be a thing of the past starting next season. So solve the inconsistencies and the amount of whistles you hear in a game? Simply go to a more international format, allow more physical play. Nobody wants to see who can make and shoot more free throws. That’s very boring. Make the game have more action and it’s better for everybody.
Reviewing + Coaches Challenges
Another thing that I dislike with the current state of NBA basketball is the amount of reviews there are. Take for example Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the Clippers and Suns. Great game, down to the wire, but it took forever. The last 90 seconds of the game took 33 minutes. There were 5 reviews in that time and 5 field goals in that time. That game ended with the Valley-Oop, one of the craziest finishes to a playoff game in recent memory. But it just took forever and ruined the flow of the game.
That last stretch of the game was exciting, close, playoff basketball. Yet it took 33 minutes. Want to know what you can do in 33 minutes? A lot more than watch 90 seconds of basketball. I think that that last stretch of the game, epitomizes the problem with the NBA’s review system. I have a simple fix.
I think that reviews in the NBA are dumb. Obviously there are some plays that you have to review, but there are some plays where it’s obvious what the call is, but just because the game’s close, they review. There’s no need to do that. If the referee clearly saw who the ball was off of last, no need for review.
5 reviews in 90 seconds can’t happen. That’s just too much. I know in high leverage situations you want to get it right and sometimes, genuinely, referees didn’t see what happened. But too many reviews is also bad. If you saw the play happen and you made the correct call, no need for reviewing something. Didn’t know that needed to be said, but too many reviews is just frustrating.
While we’re on the topic of reviewing thing, coaches challenges are stupid. The idea of them is great. If a team feels like there is a play that was called poorly, a call that if it was called right, it could help them win the game, they can challenge the call to try and win. That’s a great idea. The problem is that if a team gets the challenge right or wrong, they lose the challenge.
That is the dumbest thing in the world. Why, if you get the challenge right, do you lose it? You should get to keep it in case you need it again. I get it if you lose it only if you get in wrong, but if you get it right? There should be no reason for you to lose it for getting something right. That just makes no sense.
I think that the NBA would be a lot better off if reviews didn’t happen as often. It’s good to have reviews, but they shouldn’t happen every single possession in a close game, that just ruins the fun and momentum of the game. They’re useful for a key play here or there, but not for every single call in a close game.
I think an easy fix would be to have it so that the referees can only review 1-2 things in the final two minutes. That would mean they can only review 1-2 calls instead of like 5 in 2 minutes. Coaches challenges are also good, but I think that they should change it so that you get to keep them when you win them. No reason to just have one, I think it’s good to keep the challenge if you win it. In the NFL, you get two challenges. If you get both challenges right, you get a third challenge. Similar to that, you should be somewhat rewarded for getting a challenge right.
Rule Changes
Now these are things that I would like to see happen just because I think that they’re simple changes that help the game a lot for a variety of reasons. Here they are;
-Fouls to stop fast-breaks should be disallowed. Takes away from the action, I know it’s a “smart play,” but it’s not fun. Would much rather see a cool dunk that a side out of bounds play. If a foul like that happens, not a clear path foul, but if there was a foul to stop a fastbreak, the team who got fouled would get one free throw and the ball. Simple fix, I doubt teams would do it as much anymore.
-Now, I’m not saying that they change the rules to this, but I saw this in the G-League and I was intrigued. When you get fouled on a 3-pointer, you take 3 free throws. This causes a lot of down time. Instead of that, you would only take 1 free throw. But that free throw would be worth 3 points. It would speed up the game and I don’t really see it as a problem. Now, the G-League also did this with two-pointers, but I think that’s excessive. But I wonder what that 3-point foul rule change would do. Instead of shooting 3 free throws, you would only get one but it would be worth the same amount of points. I doubt they’d ever change this rule, but it would be interesting to see how it would work out.
-This is less of a rule change, but I have how they call moving screens now. Now, the moving screen call itself isn’t bad, it’s just that they call it so much now. Sometimes the screener doesn’t move, but it looks like he does because the defender just fights over the screen. I don’t think the NBA should call it as much as they do and I think that most screens are moving screens, technically. You will see most screeners move a little bit. Unless it’s blatant, don’t call it. It’s very annoying.
Season/Scheduling
This is the thing that everybody wants to talk about. Because this causes injuries and nobody likes injuries. I don’t know why the NBA still has their stupid schedule and they have hardly ever changed it after all these years, with all the advancements in sports science showing less games is better for player health. And now they’re talking about a potential mid-season tournament, because everybody would just love to have that (sarcasm). I don’t think the play-in tournament is a terrible idea, but the regular season needs changes.
I like what the NBA did last year, 72 games. That’s a step in the right direction. But they shortened the regular season by 4 weeks compared to the normal amount and games got squished. To make matters worse, we have 30 games postponed due to Covid. So the season wasn’t much shorter and teams had to make up a lot of games in a very little time-frame. Thus, the large amount of injuries you saw. The solution is very easy.
I think the regular season should be 60-66 games. I think that’s fair. 72 would be fine too, but 82 is too much. I like the idea of 60-66, but I don’t think 82 is good for the players health. I absolutely don’t want to see a mid-season tournament, there would be no point to that. I like the play-in tournament, makes the end of the season between the season and playoffs actually fun. But I would have a 60-game regular season with the play-in tournament.
The season would be shorter and it would be just as exciting. I would get rid of back-to-backs, which causes a lot of problems with wearing down the players. So the NBA season would have less games, less stress, more fun for all parties. The play-in tournament would still be a thing and the playoffs would start earlier and end earlier than June, likely. In the playoffs, I wouldn’t have every single game have only one rest day in between. I would have a few games with two days of rest. So now, players get actual rest so they can recover and not have to load manage. They could play in more games because they’re refreshed and fans get to see star players more. Everybody wins.
The NBA has a lot of problems and not all of my (amazing) suggestions will happen. But some of them do, mainly the refereeing changes and schedule changes. The NBA can be a lot better than it currently is, with some small tweaks. I am a fan of Adam Silver. But these changes have to happen otherwise basketball will continue to be an unfinished project and nobody wants that.
How Do You Want Basketball To Change? Leave A Comment Down Below!
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