NBA Finally Ready To Make Rule Change On Hack-A-Player

[RealGM Wiretap]

The NBA may finally be ready to create rule changes to the Hack-A-Player rules.

“I’m increasingly of the view that we will be looking to make some sort of change in that rule this summer,” said Adam Silver.

Silver has long been neutral to the strategy of intentionally fouling a player who is poor at free throws.

“Even for those who had not wanted to make the change, we’re being forced to that position just based on these sophisticated coaches understandably using every tactic available to them," Silver said. "It’s just not the way we want to see the game played."

There have been nearly 300 Hack-A-Player instances this season compared to 164 in all of last season.

DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond and Dwight Howard comprise the majority of Hack-A-Player fouls.

Via Jeff Zillgitt/USA Today

[Pedro]

The first idea that comes to mind is to honor the fouled player their 1 free throw if he's fouled away from the ball and its deemed an intentional non-basketball foul. Then give the team an additional attempt allowed to be taken by any player from that team that's on the court. Otherwise, they're not doing anything to encourage these bad free throw shooters to improve.

[mawbsta]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

[Pedro]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

I agree. I only suggested the one rule that I would agree to because technically it protects from intentionally fouling off the ball just to stop the clock. Thats how they should approach this because thats an actual legitimate issues. If a GM doesnt want their team getting hacked like that then dont sign the player who cant hit free throws.

[steamed hams]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

whole heartedly agree. Anyone who says it's not entertaining can GTFO. I rather enjoy watching poor FT shooters brick or airball free throws.

[TOR_97]

How do they do this without ruining the game?

[choppermagic]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

[Pedro]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

He said sport. Baseballs a low impact hobbie people are paid to play. I refuse to accept the vastly flawed game of baseball as a real sport especially when their playing fields arent even all the same size. Rant, over.

[kacey ring]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

Good call. However, a few things to call out:

-DH is only used in the American League, not entire MLB
-was DH implemented because pitchers couldn't hit or because pitching was so strong that you needed someone dedicated to just hitting to improve the entertainment value of the game?

The equivalent to DH in the NBA would be making a single player on the court as the designated free throw shooter. Any time there is a shooting foul then that player would always shoot the free throws.

What exactly is the NBA wanting out of a change here? I don't think the game is devalued or less entertaining because of the hacking. i don't think three bad free throw shooters should result in a rule change. They should quit wasting time talking about this.

[HotelVitale]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage. Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about. ridiculous

The entire history of every sport is a series of rule changes made to make the game more fun and entertaining. You know why the pitcher's mound is the distance from the plate it is today? Why a football team can have 11 players playing at once? Why a backward incomplete pass counts as a fumble? Why the 3pt line exists? The lane? Restricted circle? Why FTs exist in the first place (rather than some other penalty for fouls, or none at all)? All of those things are there to make the games better and more interesting, and they make big changes and little tweaks all the time to change the game up.

If this rule changes, the strategy changes just a little bit and 99.99% of the game is the same. There's just less foul shooting and more basketball that gets played. Even if you don't hate watching FT shooting, it's impossible to believe you actually think basketball will be less fun or interesting to watch because this rule will be changed. Fouling people intentionally is against the spirit of the rules anyway--fouls were initially meant to protect players from accidental excessive contact--so it's not like it's a key or essential part of 'pure basketball' (whatever that is).

[Winsome Gerbil]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

name another sport where you can literally FORCE a player to have to do the thing he is worst at. No choice at all. No minimizing. no zone defense to cover up for a slow footed guard. No not passing it to the player with bad hands,. The defense gets to FORCE a player to do this one specific skill. Out of all the dozens of skills NBA players have, FT shooting somehow gets elevated tot he single most important thing to do or we won't let you play.

Its very silly.

The simplest solution is just give the offense the choice to take the ball out on the side on off the ball fouls. The bad FT shooter is still penalized because the offensive team can;t afford to pass it to him. But he's not magically subbed out by the opposing coach because somehow the defense is allowed to make the offense's play calls for them.

[baldur]

Their lives have been through with basketball by earning millions the vast majority of humanity cant even imagine of, and they dont even know how to shoot, which is the first component, element of basketball. do they even think as to why they are chosen to be hacked or how to improve their shooting performance, afterwards?

[jcuuofd]

I completely agree with this rule change because it will speed up the pace of games. Look at baseball which has ignored calls to speed up the pace of games - their ratings have declined dramatically.

[choppermagic]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

Good call. However, a few things to call out:

-DH is only used in the American League, not entire MLB
-was DH implemented because pitchers couldn't hit or because pitching was so strong that you needed someone dedicated to just hitting to improve the entertainment value of the game?

The equivalent to DH in the NBA would be making a single player on the court as the designated free throw shooter. Any time there is a shooting foul then that player would always shoot the free throws.

What exactly is the NBA wanting out of a change here? I don't think the game is devalued or less entertaining because of the hacking. i don't think three bad free throw shooters should result in a rule change. They should quit wasting time talking about this.

An entire league of ball clubs is still pretty big and its a Major League Sport.
- DH was implemented i think to 'sell" offense to the fans for the AL. It was a pick me up for weak hitters/pitchers
- close, but not quite. The DH is specifically there for the one player in the line up, the pitcher. the DH does not hit for anyone else.

[Bakuto]

Quick name another sport where a players abhorrently poor skill and blatantly lack of ability (ie the simplest and least challenging aspect of basketball -free throw shooting) is PROTECTED/REWARDED, by penalizing the teams/coaches' strategy for accentuating that lack of skill/ability and using it to the teams' advantage.

Anyone who supports a decision to penalize teams for attacking an opponents weakest link, rather than forcing those athletes to improve their skills, is clueless about what competition and being an athlete is all about.

ridiculous

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

He said sport. Baseballs a low impact hobbie people are paid to play. I refuse to accept the vastly flawed game of baseball as a real sport especially when their playing fields arent even all the same size. Rant, over.

Baseball is absolutely a sport, come on dude.

[kacey ring]

Baseball and the Designated Hitter where players hit for the pitchers who cant bat.

Good call. However, a few things to call out:

-DH is only used in the American League, not entire MLB
-was DH implemented because pitchers couldn't hit or because pitching was so strong that you needed someone dedicated to just hitting to improve the entertainment value of the game?

The equivalent to DH in the NBA would be making a single player on the court as the designated free throw shooter. Any time there is a shooting foul then that player would always shoot the free throws.

What exactly is the NBA wanting out of a change here? I don't think the game is devalued or less entertaining because of the hacking. i don't think three bad free throw shooters should result in a rule change. They should quit wasting time talking about this.

An entire league of ball clubs is still pretty big and its a Major League Sport.
- DH was implemented i think to 'sell" offense to the fans for the AL. It was a pick me up for weak hitters/pitchers
- close, but not quite. The DH is specifically there for the one player in the line up, the pitcher. the DH does not hit for anyone else.

I'll trust your knowledge there. But I always find it odd that a major league sport doesn't have a consistent rule. The NL seems to be doing just fine with pitchers hitting.

Obviously, the NBA has enough offense, so the ALs reasoning wouldn't be supported here, but I'm aware that's not what you were arguing. I think the media has stretched this out to be worse than it is. i don't recall people calling for a rule change when Shaq and Rodman were getting sent to the line.

[Pickled Prunes]

The first idea that comes to mind is to honor the fouled player their 1 free throw if he's fouled away from the ball and its deemed an intentional non-basketball foul. Then give the team an additional attempt allowed to be taken by any player from that team that's on the court. Otherwise, they're not doing anything to encourage these bad free throw shooters to improve.

I like that thought. The bad part is that it would create another situation where refs had to decide intent: Was he fighting over a screen or intentionally fouling.

I say just let the team opt out of free throws on any foul away from the ball and take the ball out on the sideline, adding no time to the clock. There are still multiple ways the team on defense could use this to their advantage but it would rarely happen more than a couple times a game.

[ryanball]

I have idea. ME LIKE DUNKS. Make rim not so tall and more dunk are happen! Make dunk do four points and has more and more slam dunk!! Make three throws dunk also! You foul my boy DeAndre, he gets dunk on you four times. Problems solve.

[MitchB3]

In all honesty its not that bad, you can't go changing the game because four or five players are shooting less than 45%; that's not the NBA fault its the players. The reason why it is called a FREE THROW, is because one its FREE and two because its a fundamental part of the game. We hear "Oh during practice ________ player can shoot 65% from the free throw line" so why can't said player shoot that amount during the game? Is it because they can't handle the pressure or is because they want to dunk on instead of going to the line.

[irish22022]

The first idea that comes to mind is to honor the fouled player their 1 free throw if he's fouled away from the ball and its deemed an intentional non-basketball foul. Then give the team an additional attempt allowed to be taken by any player from that team that's on the court. Otherwise, they're not doing anything to encourage these bad free throw shooters to improve.

I like that thought. The bad part is that it would create another situation where refs had to decide intent: Was he fighting over a screen or intentionally fouling.

I say just let the team opt out of free throws on any foul away from the ball and take the ball out on the sideline, adding no time to the clock. There are still multiple ways the team on defense could use this to their advantage but it would rarely happen more than a couple times a game.

Non shooting fouls if player is fouled away from the ball is the only say to eliminate the loophole without making it too complicated. Just like how you don't get to shoot in the bonus on an offensive foul.

Otherwise it's some weird rule like "if he makes the first he gets two more" or blah blah, it's too much.