I don’t really see any rule changes in there that I disagree with. It sounds like they are doing a lot to try to speed up the game, especially near the end. A 30 second shot clock, shorter time allowed for substitution when a player fouls out, one fewer timeout for each team in the second half, timeouts called within thirty seconds of the media timeout count as the scheduled timeout.
And the elimination of the stupidest foul in college basketball - the technical for dunking during warm-ups.
Please eliminate the TV time out. Please be more creative in squeezing out revenue for your product.
And, as an aside, Dear NBA: Soccer is a 90 minute game that is over in more or less 105 minutes. No commercials. No timeouts. And the salaries are as obscene as in American sports. May we please take basketball back to the pre-TV era when the game flowed much better?
I’m all in favor of eliminating as many timeouts as possible. I don’t think the new rules will make much of a difference, but they will help a little bit. Too many coaches think that if they get five timeouts per game, they are REQUIRED to take all five.
Anything to make the game flow better. I absolutely cannot stand how many stoppages of play there are. Every single time the game seems to really get going, there’s a stupid foul or a timeout or something.
Make basketball more like hockey and I’ll be happy
But the only way to change basketball to make it a better, flowing game (at ALL levels) is to figure out a way to not turn the end of a game into a foul shot parade.
I am not sure what the solution is, but I have a few ideas.
But as long as the game is set up to force the team that is behind to foul to stop the clock and put the opposing player’s worst foul shopter on the line, then to add, rinse, and repeat that cycle until they either catch up or run out of time, the last 5 minutes of any game can last seemingly forever.
It ruins many first halfs also, and in my opinion, they need to fix it.
But how?
I think it would be interesting to tinker with the number of fouls required to put a team in a bonus situation (automatically putting a guy on the line after a minimum number of fouls have been reached.).
maybe with 5 minutes to go in the game, let the team that was fouled choose to either take the foul shots, or take 10 seconds (or another number, I’m just spitballing here) off the clock. This might force teams that are down to think about fouling down the stretch.
if a team is 6 fouls away from putting the other team in the bonus, why not, with 5 minutes to go, just put each team in the bonus? That would remove the run of 3-4 fouls right in a row that require a stoppage in play, taking the ball out of bounds, re-setting the players for an inbounds play, and all the other gyrations, only to do it again as soon as the ball is tossed into the court.
All of these ideas should be tested and tinkered with, and maybe purists would scream. But they need to do something. Basketball is a terrible sport at the most exciting part of the game.
I don’t hate it, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge the success of the 30 second shot clock on its use in the NIT. Those teams were more or less evenly matched just based on the nature of the tournament. Shortening the shot clock is going to be a factor when you have a team with far superior athleticism versus at team that is trying to manage the pace of the game. I’m not sure if the 5 fewer seconds is dramatic enough to be a huge factor, but I hope they don’t go lower than 30.
Actually, delaying and slowing down the pace of the game is the only way an inferior team can stay with a better team on the court. The shot clock, while speeding up the game a bit, really makes it harder for a weak team to upset the better team.
Most people don’t enjoy the 4-corners style of basketball, where a game could finish 2-0. It’s incredibly boring. I can’t remember when the shot clock was introduced, but I do remember when colleges would spread the floor, and hold onto the ball forever, and only taking a shot if a player got behind the defense for an easy lay-up. That was awful to watch, but it was great strategy for the weaker team.
In college, where there is a large disparity in talent between the haves and have nots, this will not help the have nots at all.
But that’s the way everything seems to be going. Move the game along, make it faster, keep people interested. Our attention spans get shorter and shorter all the time.
The 10-second change is interesting and maybe useful. It might motivate trailing teams to press and try to force a violation, as opposed to fouling, fouling, fouling, and putting us to sleep. (Until now, you could escape a potential 10-second violation by calling timeout.)
In a way, you can still “escape” a 10-second violation with a timeout, since all you need to do is to get the ball into the front court on the subsequent throw-in. Meanwhile, there will still be “fouling, fouling, fouling” in tbe backcourt, as the intent of fouling is to get a poor free throw shooter on the line while running off as little time as possible.
I also wonder how closely they’re going to police the “15 seconds to replace a player who fouled out” rule. I have a feeling what will usually happen is, the first time a player fouls out, the coach will take 30 seconds and get a warning, and after that, the coach will send the substitute to the table right after the 15 seconds runs out, and the officials, not wanting to “decide the game with their whistles.” will let it slide.
They could stop the incessant fouling at the end of the game if they gave the fouled team the choice of shots or taking the ball out of bounds. Or they could say any foul in the back court was three shots.
Took a long time for the shot clock to be put in. One catalyst was a Duke/UNC game with a halftime score of 7-0. Final score was 47-40 , second half was played normally.
I think eventually they will give the option of ball out of bounds for a foul rather than foul shots.
With a shot clock the 10 second rule is not needed. If you want to spend all 30 seconds in the backcourt then I see no problem with that.