RealGM

The NBA is planning on making rule changes to reduce the Hack-a-Shaq strategy.

DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond and Dwight Howard were victims of the strategy this season.

“It’s not unanimous, but there’s clearly an emerging consensus that we need to address the situation,” Adam Silver said in a meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors on Thursday afternoon at the league’s midtown Manhattan headquarters. “Exactly what the new rule should be is open for debate, and at least I’m hoping that between now and the next owner’s meeting in July we can create and form a consensus as to what the change in the rule should be.”

Kiki VanDeWeghe, the NBA’s vice president of basketball operations said it has been easy to note the explosion in use of the strategy this season.

“It goes against the spirit of the rule book,” VanDeWeghe said. “Free throws were to compensate and deter fouls, not to encourage them. So I think we’re at the point where everyone agrees on that, not to belabor that, so what are the solutions?”

Silver was against a rule change as recently as last summer.

“Last year I was on the fence,” Silver said. “I said last year to this group, and over the summer, was let’s look at one more season of data. At [the all-star break in February], we were roughly at four times, in terms of that portion of the season compared to prior seasons, and by the end of the season we were up 2.5 times. By the way, last year’s playoffs were 10 times from the previous year’s playoffs as well.”

Via Tim Bontemps/Washington Post

Don't make a change. Let feel like ****. Its their fault for not working on their free throws. This is a man's league. They can't shoot and they're getting exposed. Let them know they should work on their free throws or it will continue

BeGreezy wrote:Don't make a change. Let feel like ****. Its their fault for not working on their free throws. This is a man's league. They can't shoot and they're getting exposed. Let them know they should work on their free throws or it will continue

Yes they will be able to miss free throws and be punished for it when they are SHOOTING.. or actually involved in a basketball play.
Immediately running up to a player and hugging them is not a basketball play.

BeGreezy wrote:Don't make a change. Let feel like ****. Its their fault for not working on their free throws. This is a man's league. They can't shoot and they're getting exposed. Let them know they should work on their free throws or it will continue

Your fighting a losing battle. This is the "everybody gets a trophy" generation in the NBA now, so bad decisions by coaches to have bad free throw shooters on the floor will be ok'd by changing the rules. Everybody gets to play.

Not sure why the rules need to change to accommodate poor quality free throw shooters.

Maybe rules to deter them make more sense. Anybody shooting less than 50% on the season can't play in the last 2 minutes or 4th quarter.

Can't understand why everybody else gets punished for playing the game the way it's always been played and why the league needs to make more room for bad free throw shooters. They're going to miss on the and one free throws more because they'll be on the floor more. Are those misses good for the game? Guys who can shoot from 15 feet will take a back seat to guys who can only score from 2 feet. Is that good for the game?

Great idea: change a rule to accommodate 5 people in a league 500. How about we hold them accountable...learn to make a Free Throw, you're making millions.

I love this quote from Kiki

"Free throws were to compensate and deter fouls, not to encourage them"

Right - and everyone knows not to foul the guy who shoots 90% and to make sure if they are going to foul, that they foul the guy shooting 50%

the solution is still the same - hit your free throws and teams are far less inclined to foul you

If you want to stop hack-a-shaq there are two viable resolutions-
1. teams get to choose who can shoot deliberate fouls
2. the last two minutes of the game is RUN TIME - not stop time

Bout damn time!!!

FormerCavsFan wrote:Not sure why the rules need to change to accommodate poor quality free throw shooters.

Maybe rules to deter them make more sense. Anybody shooting less than 50% on the season can't play in the last 2 minutes or 4th quarter.

Can't understand why everybody else gets punished for playing the game the way it's always been played and why the league needs to make more room for bad free throw shooters. They're going to miss on the and one free throws more because they'll be on the floor more. Are those misses good for the game? Guys who can shoot from 15 feet will take a back seat to guys who can only score from 2 feet. Is that good for the game?

No they won't take a back seat to them... the only thing that will happen is more basketball will be played, and less intentionally fouling during non-basketball plays.
Nothing changes, they still have to shoot free throws if they are fouled with the ball.

I thought they aren't changing the rule because of two players, Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan.
It is different now because you have Andre Drummonds too.
Just to show you NBA hates Dwight Howard.

Also NBA should change the rules to prevent three pointers, since some people can't make them... and prevent dunks, since some players are short.

mawbsta wrote:I love this quote from Kiki

"Free throws were to compensate and deter fouls, not to encourage them"

Lot of hard fouls on layups in the playoffs - maybe we should also outlaw fouls on layups, or give the guy who is fouled shooting a layup three free throws? We don't want to encourage fouling, after all.

Lame.

Free throws still work as they are intended, to deter fouls, except for 3 guys who can't shoot a stand-still-nobody-guard-you shot to save their life.

Next, let's outlaw any shots because anytime you try to score they might foul you. Shooting alone does not deter fouls.

If they are so keen to keeping the rule and spirit of the game, then do something to deter player from "drawing fouls" by initiating contact on defenders. (aka James Harden).

Arp590 wrote:Immediately running up to a player and hugging them is not a basketball play.

So what you want to do is penalize players based on their INTENT when they commit a foul... ok so how are you going to determine what a player's intent was? There are more off the ball fouls than there are hacka plays.

I think the rules are fine - allowing hack-a in fact adds an element of strategy into the game. Are you going to keep a guy out there at the end when he is a bad foul shooter? Is the bad foul shooter going to nail his shots in the clutch, like Shaq used to do? And why don't these big men improve their foul shooting - Rick Barry says he can get their percentages up, but these guys are not secure enough in their manhood to attempt underhand free throws. Why reward them for that?

And no matter what the rules are, there are going to be coaches who seek to exploit them. If we put an extra penalty on away from the ball fouls are we going to start to see James Harden flinging himself all over the floor anytime anyone comes near him away from the ball?

If a coach can get a leg up because he understands and can leverage the rules better than someone else, props to him.

I go back and forth on this subject. I do think the hack a strategy has gotten out of hand and makes games take way too long at times but at the same time I think players deserve some of the blame. There's no excuse to shoot 39 percent or anything below 65 percent imo. To be at the highest level of basketball and be incapable of hitting the side of a barn is inexcusable and the best way to prevent the hack a strategy is practicing & coaching a guy to shoot better

Twinkie defense wrote:

Arp590 wrote:Immediately running up to a player and hugging them is not a basketball play.

So what you want to do is penalize players based on their INTENT when they commit a foul... ok so how are you going to determine what a player's intent was? There are more off the ball fouls than there are hacka plays.

I think the rules are fine - allowing hack-a in fact adds an element of strategy into the game. Are you going to keep a guy out there at the end when he is a bad foul shooter? Is the bad foul shooter going to nail his shots in the clutch, like Shaq used to do? And why don't these big men improve their foul shooting - Rick Barry says he can get their percentages up, but these guys are not secure enough in their manhood to attempt underhand free throws. Why reward them for that?

And no matter what the rules are, there are going to be coaches who seek to exploit them. If we put an extra penalty on away from the ball fouls are we going to start to see James Harden flinging himself all over the floor anytime anyone comes near him away from the ball?

If a coach can get a leg up because he understands and can leverage the rules better than someone else, props to him.

They already make rulings on a players intent with flagrant fouls, all they need to do is adopt international (and the original) rules of basketball and rename them unsportsmanlike fouls.

Want to run up and bearhug Dwight? Cool, he's got 2 FT's and then Houston's got the ball and you risk James Harden dropping a 3 on you for a 5 point play. Will stop teams wrapping guys up in the backcourt pretty quickly.

With any rule changes there would be tweaking to the interpretation and calling of the rules required, but the above is such a simple solution, it's madness it's not already happening.

FormerCavsFan wrote:

BeGreezy wrote:Don't make a change. Let feel like ****. Its their fault for not working on their free throws. This is a man's league. They can't shoot and they're getting exposed. Let them know they should work on their free throws or it will continue

Your fighting a losing battle. This is the "everybody gets a trophy" generation in the NBA now, so bad decisions by coaches to have bad free throw shooters on the floor will be ok'd by changing the rules. Everybody gets to play.

You need to know that you should work on all aspects of your game. A few seasons ago when OKC was playing the Spurs in the Playoffs, they would do hack-a-tiago. What happened after the Playoffs? The guy worked on his free throw and increased to a 73% free throw shooter. That's a pro. If you don't want to get fouled intentionally, learn to shoot and no one will do it. No other NBA player has empathy for those who don't work on their free throws.

Arp590 wrote:

BeGreezy wrote:Don't make a change. Let feel like ****. Its their fault for not working on their free throws. This is a man's league. They can't shoot and they're getting exposed. Let them know they should work on their free throws or it will continue

Yes they will be able to miss free throws and be punished for it when they are SHOOTING.. or actually involved in a basketball play.
Immediately running up to a player and hugging them is not a basketball play.

Its not a proper basketball play. But we shouldn't have to make rules to protect players who won't work on their free throws. You need to know that you should work on all aspects of your game. A few seasons ago when OKC was playing the Spurs in the Playoffs, they would do hack-a-tiago. What happened after the Playoffs? The guy worked on his free throw and increased to a 73% free throw shooter. That's a pro. If you don't want to get fouled intentionally, learn to shoot and no one will do it. No other NBA player has empathy for those who don't work on their free throws.

The League is so soft now.

It's getting to the point where they may as well just start going with a "no touch" rule.