NBA Competition Committee looking at how can parity be achieved between offense & defense in today's game

[nitetrain8603]

less calls and allow more physicality. Offenses today get to do whatever they want unimpeded. Nobody wants to watch millionaire athletes shoot free throws. Less calls allow for a better flow to the game.

It's honestly that simple, just call less on both sides of the ball. Allow defenders to be physical. Be consistent and the game will be fine.

[League Circles]

I wouldn't be super opposed to eliminating the 3 point shot

[step]

Few years back the NBA experimented with this philosophy and it worked. Soon after it went away due to players crying bloody murder.

Those were a few good weeks. And then a number of superstars were upset they weren't getting to the FT line as much as they were before... and it quickly unraveled back to what it was before.

[bulls_downunder]

I would like two things to happen. First, allow a little more handchecking inside the 3-point line. Second, call more offensive fouls on players for initiating contact while shooting and driving to the basket.

[chicago paxsons]

- Enforce the rules equally regardless of the player in question

- Punish flopping instead of rewarding it

- Eliminate the stupid rule that results in a shooting foul if the defender lands anywhere near a shooter (it's called contesting a shot)

- Call offensive fouls when players lower their shoulder into a defender

- Call more traveling and carrying, it's out of hand

- Maybe test eliminating the defensive 3-second rule in the G League and see how that goes. I believe the NBA is the only level that has defensive 3 seconds, which contributes to why zone D is more common in college

This is just off the top of my head. It wouldn't fix things, but it would help.

Calling moving screens would be a positive too.

[Rose2Boozer]

Get rid of the defensive three seconds rule.

[bledredwine]

I find it hilarious that so many posters were denying this for so long. This whole debacle cracks me up. You can’t ignore it any longer when it’s all you hear about. The proof is so exacerbated that it’s undeniable; all of the outrageous games, the players themselves saying there’s no defense, pop saying it’s not basketball anymore, lebron saying it’s impossible to defend.

[BullChit]

I feel like they did this a few years back when they stopped calling certain fouls and then players like LeBron and Harden cried for half a season and then it all went away.

[The Explorer]

I find it hilarious that so many posters were denying this for so long. This whole debacle cracks me up. You can’t ignore it any longer when it’s all you hear about. The proof is so exacerbated that it’s undeniable; all of the outrageous games, the players themselves saying there’s no defense, pop saying it’s not basketball anymore, lebron saying it’s impossible to defend.

Yup, the coaches too. Chris Finch and Steve Kerr have said this season that defense has been legislated out of the game. It's why stats are so inflated across the board and why the argument for players being better today doesn't hold much water. Lebron's GOAT case also falls apart with him accumulating stats so easily in this inflated era.

Give me the dead ball era of the early 2000's over today's game any day.

[Ice Man]

Luka says to eliminate the 3-point defensive rule. Let the shot blockers camp out in the paint forever. He thinks that rule change would do the most to cut back on scoring, because then the perimeter shooters couldn't watch the defender in the lane and time their dribble for when that player vacates the lane.

[dougthonus]

I think people pretty grossly misunderstand why offenses are better and are mostly locked into preconceived notions and also a lot of things old vet players say on TV but aren't really backed up by any of the data.

What hasn't happened:
Officials give more calls to the offensive players / rule changes benefit offensive players

Free throw rate has declined really significantly. League wide free throws are 20% per possession than they were before. Now to be fair to the people who think calls are tighter, the entire drop can be explained by the shift to more three point shots, it may even be that there is a slight bump on free throw draw rate per attempt at the rim, but it isn't the driving factor here of offensive improvement as overall points from foul calls are way on the decline.

The game has gotten soft and guys aren't allowed to be physical, it may be true, but given that guys aren't living at the line or scoring on the inside in droves, hard fouls at the rim are basically an irrelevancy here. Guys are scoring on the perimeter where you were never allowed to beat people up. The value of being physical is just less too.

Players just stopped trying on defense. It's just a ridiculous assumption that players don't care anymore but used to care. Teams more than ever are looking at how to defend better and searching for defenders rather than offensive players in the trade market.

What has happened:
The league has got a gazillion times smarter with the advent of analytics and they drastically reduced really dumb shots (vast majority of post play / isolations / mid range shots) and switched to much higher value shots. From a quick glance, we're shooting almost 2x as many 3s (40% of the shots vs 20% of the shots) as in the past, and also shooting them at a higher rate (36% vs 34%). The vast majority of those 3s are assisted and generally this is all about improvement of the skill level / specialization in shooting of the NBA player. This explains, from a quick glance, 90% or so of the gap of improved offense over the last decade.

The league has developed a meta of a couple star players surrounded by guys who can shoot and defend, and players have adapted by becoming unprecedently better at shooting than in the past. The league has basically doubled its 3 point attempts in the past decade AND increased it's league wide average shooting percentage at the same time.

Team defense has become dramatically more difficult to play due to the above, because the space to defend is dramatically larger when most teams have at least four guys who can shoot threes on the floor at any given time.

Team's have realized that the earlier you get the ball into attack mode, the better shot you get. Pace is dramatically up. There are way more early offense opportunities as most teams push the ball, and half court opportunities yield better shots with an additional 4 seconds to work with because the ball got pushed faster. This increases overall shot profile efficiency (more early offense shots which are incredibly high efficiency) and better efficiency in the half court with fewer end of shot clock shots.

Things that probably won't work:
Allowing more physical defense at the rim - this isn't where the increased scoring is coming from, I'm not saying the line is drawn perfectly here, I'd love to let a lot of body contact go too, but it isn't really what's causing the problem

Allowing more hand checking - maybe it helps stop some penetration but the efficiency is largely from open shooters not on ball guys doing crazy stuff. Like the above, it might help some, but it isn't addressing any of the root causes

Things that probably will help:
Remove defensive 3 seconds rule to allow defenders to go anywhere they want. This fundamentally feels fair and probably also opens up zone defenses to work dramatically more effectively.

Lessening the value of a 3 or increasing the difficulty:
We'd never do it, but make the 3 worth 2.5
Widen the court and remove the shorter corner 3
Extend out the 3 point line by 3 feet and don't have corner 3s at all so they're only above the break 3s.

All those ideas probably around changing the value prop of a 3 point shot feel too jarring to get fan approval, but they are what is needed if you just want to make the value prop of a 3 worse.

Simplest solution in my mind is just remove defensive three second rule and see where that goes, feels fundamentally fair, wouldn't immediately create a massive visual change for fans or feel wrong and probably goes a long way to allow the creation of modern defenses to combat the 4 out / 5 out offense. The value prop of a 3 is probably the same, but it's harder to get one, and mid rangers probably become easier to get as teams will prioritize close outs to knock you off the 3 point line, and there's always a good shot blocker just sitting in the paint, so the best shot likely often becomes avoid the close out and dribble into a mid ranger.

Also, the next thing is just to realize this isn't actually a problem. Generally speaking, offenses are just more efficient because they are better and making smarter decisions. Just sit back and enjoy it. It's really a lot of old school players that are analysts that are heavily invested in "back in my day" type of BS that is pushing a lot of this narrative anyway.

[Red8911]

Start off with allowing more contact, not everything is a foul. Let players play defense for a change.

[sco]

Have the committee use the Bulls' offense, talent, coaching and FO as the blueprint to reduce league-wide offensive output.

[MrSparkle]

Just adopt the Euro rules already. The talent level is exponentially worse, yet the quality of basketball is exponentially better. This is a no-brainer.

1. Bring the 3P line closer. NOT FURTHER. Level the playing field marginally. It will actually make it marginally easier to defend the line if most role-players square up a foot closer, and it'll make further unguardable 25ft shots more stupid (unless you're Dame Curry). It's weird in the NBA anyway - in Europe, the distance is equally 6.75m from every 3P spot, whereas the NBA has this weirdly fluctuating line (shorter corners).

2. Allowing hand-checking and "illegal" defense would immensely cut down on knee and foot injuries IMO to stars. Guys aren't going to be driving at 100mph uncontested into dangerous traps.

3. Allow rim swatting.

4. Run the clock on in-bounds.

Pros:

NBA players are more prepped for FIBA ball, so they can send the C squad without becoming deer in headlights.

Ball movement would have to increase to win games.

Good teams/players will still prevail. Gimmicks will not.

Meanwhile, I'd tighten up calls for transition fouls -- technicals for cheap tricks intentionally stopping the game.

I don't think it would happen thugh. NBA needs its 5 TV Timeouts and hour of ref-stop-time to generate more advertising money. I don't know who's watching though. I can't remember the last time I sat through an entire 3 hour broadcast of a 48 minute NBA game. The amount of stops and commercials is absolutely insane. I don't have 3-4 evenings a week to waste on this product anymore. I might be entirely wrong, but I feel like it used to be more of a 2h15 broadcast in my youth, but it's moved towards a 2h45 slot. Particularly the national broadcasts. Last year's playoffs seemed extra difficult to sit through.

[Andi Obst]

Also, the next thing is just to realize this isn't actually a problem. Generally speaking, offenses are just more efficient because they are better and making smarter decisions. Just sit back and enjoy it. It's really a lot of old school players that are analysts that are heavily invested in "back in my day" type of BS that is pushing a lot of this narrative anyway.

This is exactly where I'm at. You probably need some changes because it looks like the best offenses have basically "solved" basketball, which is definitely a concern to some degree. But overall, I'm enjoying the show.

I also very much disagree with the notion that all offenses look the same these days, something I've read a lot in discussions like this. The shot profiles may be very similar, but the way the teams get there depends so much on how their stars play. And the NBA has a lot of stars with completely different ways to juice their teams' offense.

It's good that the NBA is looking into things like this, though.

[Dan Z]

- Enforce the rules equally regardless of the player in question

- Punish flopping instead of rewarding it

- Eliminate the stupid rule that results in a shooting foul if the defender lands anywhere near a shooter (it's called contesting a shot)

- Call offensive fouls when players lower their shoulder into a defender

- Call more traveling and carrying, it's out of hand

- Maybe test eliminating the defensive 3-second rule in the G League and see how that goes. I believe the NBA is the only level that has defensive 3 seconds, which contributes to why zone D is more common in college

This is just off the top of my head. It wouldn't fix things, but it would help.

Calling moving screens would be a positive too.

I'll add that they shouldn't allow players to take two steps back in order to take a shot. If they eliminate that then players wouldn't be able to jump backwards to gain space from the defender before taking a shot.

The original reason why anyone is allowed two steps is for forward momentum. Dribbling is a big part of the game and should matter.

[HomoSapien]

Have the committee use the Bulls' offense, talent, coaching and FO as the blueprint to reduce league-wide offensive output.

[_txchilibowl_]

Everyone knows that three-point shot is hyper efficient. Likewise, everyone knows a mid-range shot is hyper inefficient.

I don't care.

I like to watch basketball not live action math equations. Analytics has essentially removed parts of the game that made it interesting. And so while I don't blame NBA teams for doing what they're doing, you can't tell me that the game is more engaging this way. I want post ups. I want back to the basket centers. I want Scottie Pippen banking in 15 footers. All of those things are basketball. It's not just a three-point shooting contest.

[The Explorer]

Players just stopped trying on defense. It's just a ridiculous assumption that players don't care anymore but used to care. Teams more than ever are looking at how to defend better and searching for defenders rather than offensive players in the trade market.

I wouldn't say players just stopped trying as a blanket statement, but in general defense has been at an all time worst the last couple years. Coaches like Finch and Kerr have been on record stating that defense has been legislated out of the game. Players like Doncic and others have also stated it's much easier to score in the NBA than in euro league.

Also, the next thing is just to realize this isn't actually a problem. Generally speaking, offenses are just more efficient because they are better and making smarter decisions. Just sit back and enjoy it. It's really a lot of old school players that are analysts that are heavily invested in "back in my day" type of BS that is pushing a lot of this narrative anyway.

It definitely is a problem. You can go by any number of measures. Take TV ratings in the Finals or all star games, where we've had some of the lowest rated programming the last few years. Every team pretty much plays the same style, and there is no intrigue or clashing styles like there used to be.

[League Circles]

Everyone knows that three-point shot is hyper efficient. Likewise, everyone knows a mid-range shot is hyper inefficient.

I don't care.

I like to watch basketball not live action math equations. Analytics has essentially removed parts of the game that made it interesting. And so while I don't blame NBA teams for doing what they're doing, you can't tell me that the game is more engaging this way. I want post ups. I want back to the basket centers. I want Scottie Pippen banking in 15 footers. All of those things are basketball. It's not just a three-point shooting contest.

The 3 point shot isn't even that efficient anyway. A 40% 3 point shooter (which is pretty great) is getting about 60% TS% on those attempts, with league average for all scoring attempts at about 58%. It's boring to watch and by itself not super efficient. Although it does create more high efficiency shots (dunks and layups) due to spacing, long rebounds leading to transition points etc.