No 3-pointers until the last five minutes? What comes next, bonus points if you say the secret word of the day when going up for your dunk? Brick a shot and you have to play the next 3 minutes blindfolded? Pantsing?
Was this really a problem that was bogging down the flow of the game? Or is the NBA just compensating for an increasing number of hot-dogging showoffs who can’t shoot from more than three feet away? Hoping to boost revenues by turning the entire game into a Playstation promo?
Hell, maybe they’re just preparing an excuse for getting their lunch eaten at the next Olympics. “B-b-but… they were shooting! From far away, even! How can we compete with that? That’s not what basketball’s about! Those guys aren’t even grounded in the basic fundamentals of behind-the-back dunking and music video production!”
Even though the three-point rule is a relatively recent innovation (1979 IIRC), this is just plain stupid. The game seriously does not to sped up even more and brought closer to the basket. If anything, I find far more elegance in a well executed 3-point shot than some friggin half-travelling drive into the basket dunk.
Less dunks, more outside shots please. I may be in the minority, but this is why I just don’t watch NBA basketball anymore. It’s just not basketball.
I hope fan outcry will avert this embarrassment. Really, though, doesn’t the first line say it all?
Translation: “Our guys can’t shoot, so we’ll try to stop them from even bothering.” If the NBA does that it might be a long time until the USA wins another basketball medal.
How about…
-five-pointers from half-court?
-Touched the rim? two minute penalty.
-teams start with a decifit in points equal to the number of tattoos sported by the starting lineup.
-foul shots must be made underhand.
-basket height raised to twenty feet.
-players that miss layups when no opponent in in the paint must immediately complete a twenty pushup penalty right there on court
-The rim is electrically charged every odd second.
-shot clock reduced to twenty seconds.
-The only shoes that can be worn on court are old-school Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars, high-top, black, with white laces.
Certainly not all of these could be instituted. But it’d make for some enjoyable play if a few were made rules!
Hmm… perhaps, this is indeed a semi-deliberate move in the direction towards creating NBAball, an exclusively American form of Sports-Entertainment that nobody else plays, that has as much in common with Basketball as NFL Football does with Rugby; and international competition becomes irrelevant.
Actually, they’re trying to force them to shoot. The problem with way things currently are is that every shot seems to be either a 3-pointer or a dunk. The rule change is supposed to encourage more 12 to 16 foot jumpers, but I’m not exactly sure how.
NBA (and development) players need to learn how to shoot again, if only to spread defenses out a bit. The constant “drive to the hole and dunk” crap is starting to get old, but I’m not sure killing the three is the way to accomplish this.
That´s true. The way to cut that down it to enforce the rules that are already in place. Almost every “drive to the hole and dunk” move is first a palming violation and then traveling, but nobody seems to care. Especially the palming thing drives me crazy. All guards do that (you can´t blame them, they do what they can get away with), but it´s such an obvious violation of the rules that it makes you wonder why they even have this rule. Most of the “ankle breaking” crossovers are ridiculous; they just put their hand under the ball and carry it with them.
