Things I'd Like to See David Stern & the NBA do to improve the NBA

[CruzDude]

Over the past few years some of the same items keep getting in my craw as to what is wrong with the NBA and what can be done to make the whole game experience better for us the fans, for the teams and the league. Here we go:

1. Get rid of multi-year guaranteed contracts. Maybe 2 years max. Then if the player didn't hold up his end of the performance he brings, he can get released or dealt or bought out. The lower 2/3 of the league are stuck with any number of 3-4-5 year contract players whose performance had become sub-par or who just did not fit the teams "system" and it drags them down and makes it much harder to crack into the top 10 teams in the league. KT and SAR are our examples, and Brad if he does not have a year like last year. This would not necessarily help the really dumm or stoopid GM's who just make bad decisions but it would give them an out in 2 years.

2. A New Last 2-minutes Rule. In the last 2 minutes of each half, a foul committed by a defender would result in one foul shot and retaining possession of the ball for the offended team. It's tiring and not very good basketball to have the last 50 seconds of a game take 10-15 minutes to complete because of all the fouls.

3. Call the Fouls Committed Regardless of Who Did It. As pointed out below, this is totally subjective. I'll change this to more uniformly calling two fouls that now are not called hardly at all:
- lane violation for crossing into the paint before ball is out of the hands of the shooter;
- traveling when making a little skip-hop from a stand still to begin a dribble.

4. Setup a 30 team D-League like MLB AAA farm system. But make it easier to move more than 1 or 2 players back and forth. The River Cats, the AAA team for Oakland Athletics is a perfect example. The better the Cats did the better Oakland got by using those players after they had a chance to improve their games at the next highest level. This is big money and may not happen for many years.

Reno is a tiny market compared to Sacramento, the 20th TV market in the country. Big/bigger market teams have a much better revenue stream to count on for a D-league team they may have. It also impacts the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). My personal view is that to have a AAA farm system type setup the Union would want each team to have not 13 but 15 minimum players with up to 3 of those on the affiliated D-league team. Right now most teams want 12-13 active players able to play on the bench every night.

5. Go to International Basketball (FIBA) Rules. That would widen the lane into a trapazoid (PurpleHaze had the right idea here), and spread out the bigs a bit more. Also enforce the free throw rule that "no player may step over the boundries of the zone (painted area in US) until the ball has left the hand of the free throw shooter". However, it is the US game that uses the bigs (Vlade, Shaq, Duncan, Howard, etc) as main points of the offense and has the low post offenses much more than the Euro game. Fine, this just spreads them out a bit.


I'm sure there are more I'll add. What do you all think?

 

[creAtivetfh]

I've always liked that D-League idea. A lot of players could be a lot better if they just got the time to play in live games.

 

[PurpleHaze]

I agree with all those you mentioned. I'd like to see the court widened and/ or the lane widened (maybe like int'l trapezoid). The players today are so big and long they are constantly stepping out of bounds in the corner (Peja seems do it once or twice a game) and lane constantly choked with bigs making 3pt shot the choice rather than second or third option. There's a couple of other changes I want but this came to mind right away. Any friendly critics out there - NO I don't want the basket height raised.

 

[NewMonkey]

Totally agree with #1. So much of what happens with NBA personnel now is dictated by salaries and bad contracts. They should make some sort of exception to the non-guaranteed deals for medical retirement. If a guy is forced into a medical retirement, he should get some portion of the rest of his deal. I would even be for partially guaranteed deals in years three to five. Anything to break the stranglehold bad players have on NBA teams.

I would also like to see instant replay. Each team gets one instant replay per half. If they're right, they get charged a 20 second time out. If they're wrong, they get charged a full time out. Anything can be reviewed, but it can only happen when you would normally call a time out. (No throwing flags onto the court to stop play.) There are other details that would need to be worked out, but the refereeing in the NBA is too bad to never try anything new.

 

[VF21]

1. Get rid of multi-year guaranteed contracts. Maybe 2 years max. Then if the player didn't hold up his end of the performance he brings, he can get released or dealt or bought out. The lower 2/3 of the league are stuck with any number of 3-4-5 year contract players whose performance had become sub-par or who just did not fit the teams "system" and it drags them down and makes it much harder to crack into the top 10 teams in the league. KT and SAR are our examples, and Brad if he does not have a year like last year. This would not necessarily help the really dumm or stoopid GM's who just make bad decisions but it would give them an out in 2 years.

This is something Stern has no control over. If you want change, you're going to have to lobby the player's union and get them to accept changes to their Collective Bargaining Agreement and that's not gonna happen.

2. A New Last 2-minutes Rule. In the last 2 minutes of each half, a foul committed by a defender would result in one foul shot and retaining possession of the ball for the offended team. It's tiring and not very good basketball to have the last 50 seconds of a game take 10-15 minutes to complete because of all the fouls.

I like it.

3. Call the Fouls Committed Regardless of Who Did It. In the playoffs Paul Pierce, on a one-man break-away, clearly to the entire world, made 4 separate and solid steps AFTER he stopped the dribble on his way to a slam dunk. In summer league they are calling "carrying the ball over" a lot now but not the shuffling travels that so many players make starting up from a fixed stance out away from the basket. Kobe and Tim Duncan and KG and others get the benefit of the doubt far too often on obvious fouls. (How many of you remember Bibby getting elbowed in the face by Kobe during the 02 playoffs.................and Bibby gets the foul. I know refereeing is difficult but to make it simplier, call the fouls without bias.

This is more subjective, since the rules are there but not always applied consistently.

4. Setup a 30 team D-League like MLB AAA farm system. But make it easier to move more than 1 or 2 players back and forth. The River Cats, the AAA team for Oakland Athletics is a perfect example. The better the Cats did the better Oakland got by using those players after they had a chance to improve their games at the next highest level.

While this has potential, there are financial considerations that have to be explored, especially from the point of view of the franchise holders. I'm just not sure it's something that's going to come to pass. In all honesty, I'd like to see a rule change that makes players stay in college TWO years before entering the NBA.

I'd like to see them eliminate fouling out, unless it's for flagrant fouls. Barring that, I'd like to see the number of fouls increased or at least have the slate wiped clean if the game goes into overtime.

 

[GeraldWallace#3]

Add a chalenge system like the do in the NFL.

 

[Superman]

I'd like to see them eliminate fouling out, unless it's for flagrant fouls. Barring that, I'd like to see the number of fouls increased or at least have the slate wiped clean if the game goes into overtime.

I like the foul out rule, but I would give one more foul per player, and I'd give an additional foul per overtime period. I hate seeing stars sitting on the bench in the first half because of foul trouble. Amare Stoudemire has this problem, and part of it has to do with undisciplined defense, but it can also be affected - and often is - by poor officiating.

 

[Bricklayer]

1. Get rid of multi-year guaranteed contracts. Maybe 2 years max.

Well #1 is obviously not happening unless you break the union, and breaking the union would require something along the lines of the NHL's suicide season off a few years back. I'll pass. People rarely consider jsut how immensely unfair such proposals are anyway -- the NFL gets away with that because they HAVE broken their union, but let's see here: in normal life employment is at will, meaning you can walk away at any time, or your employer can fire you at any time. Its "fair" (although if you suddenly find yourself "downsized" so your company can open up a cheaper factory in SE Asia you may not find it quite so chummy). In the current system NEITHER the team NOR the player can walk away. They are contractually bound to each other. It too is "fair". Sometimes you get a Kenny Thomas, sometimes a Peja bargain. But these suggestion always involve a form of involuntary servitude, whereas the player has no choice -- he is under contract. But the team basically is not. Its a one way contract where the player can't leave, but hte team can still fire him at any time. That sort of asymetry is not at all fair, and one susp[ects that sucha system would beging to lead to all kinds of icky behavior seen elsewhere -- holdouts etc. from players trying to balance the system and control their own fate. Suspect the two year mark wouold also magically find players and their agents suddenly carping hard at teams they did not like trying to get released. Sign a contract wiht a bad team? Why wait ona rebuild -- just threaten the front office into releasing you from your deal.

2. A New Last 2-minutes Rule.

#2 sounds good...until you realize that the end effect would be to make any lead of more than maybe 8 points almost completely insurmoutable in the last 2 minutes. Much as I hate foul fests, if there is basically no way for a defensive team to speed up their getting the ball back (besides an unlikely steal), then in the final minutes all a team wiht a lead woould have to do is dribble the ball out for the full 24 seconds each time, and there is nothing at all you could do on defense. You know that nailbiting "we have a 1pt lead with 16 seconds to go" scenario? Its no longer nailbiting. You have already won the game, just dribble it out. Would actually take a lot of excitiement out of the game, ugly foulfests or no. I think an easier solution might be just to just park a big ole hoss right behnd every team's bench. And then the next time Reggie ordered an intentional foulfest down 17 with 1:10 to go, just have the big dude kick him right in the nads...hard. That would clean up a lot of it.

3. Call the Fouls Committed Regardless of Who Did It.

With #3 I would like to add in this proviso -- I do not like foul outs. No other major sport out there has a device built in whereby you can go about getting the opposing team's best player disqualified. A few bad calls, a few of your guys jumping into a guy and flopping, and the whole game changes. Rather than countering that with the current wink wink nudge nudge protect the superstar system, I have gradually begun to favor the relatively radical idea of eliminating the foul out -- at 6 fouls you are not out of the game. Instead, with each subsequent foul by that same player, its 2 FTs and the ball for the other team. Penalizes the guy with the 6 fouls for hacking people, hurts his team if he continues to foul, but gets rid of the randomness of having your best players removed from the game. It also eliminates much reason for the refs to cheat on the best players' behalf.

4. Setup a 30 team D-League like MLB AAA farm system.

Sound nice, but realistically #4 is probably not going to happen for a variety of reasons, most notably because basketball is not baseball, and it does not take 5 years for your future superstars to develop to the level where they can help you. Basketball's minor leagues have always been about just the very fringe guys. Tim Duncan will never play in a minor league. And hence the excitement and interest (let alone to support 30 teams) have never been there. You aren't watching the future stars grow up before your eyes, you are watching strictly second class players who might one day be 11th or 12th men. For the same reasons the NBA teams are never going to be terribly excited about them -- chances are lwo to even nab a rotation player out of that system, let alone a main guy.

5. Go to International Basketball (FIBA) Rules.

#5 good lord no. The FIBA lane is trash, a perverison of the game, and a primary reason why so few of their bigs ever learn to play like bigs. Its a junked up system designed to cater to littler perimeter shooters by artificailly making it difficult for inside players to play their games. Thankfully I've heard rumblings that things may be going the other way, and FIBA will be going back to the game's original, and normal, rectangular lane. The rectangular lane IS the lane. That's not going to change, and thank god for that.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Come on, now... 11th or 12th man is a trifle harsh. Obviously you're not going to get a star in the D-League; anybody good enough to be a star is going straight to the League, as soon as they're eligible. But I think we've already seen evidence that there's some talent in the D-League. It's certainly not inconceivable (I wouldn't even say unlikely) that you could find a 6-7-8 guy in the rotation down there. You can certainly do worse than a guy that can get you 7 and 3 and play defense off the bench.

 

[Bricklayer]

Come on, now... 11th or 12th man is a trifle harsh. Obviously you're not going to get a star in the D-League; anybody good enough to be a star is going straight to the League, as soon as they're eligible. But I think we've already seen evidence that there's some talent in the D-League. It's certainly not inconceivable (I wouldn't even say unlikely) that you could find a 6-7-8 guy in the rotation down there. You can certainly do worse than a guy that can get you 7 and 3 and play defense off the bench.

And you could also do better, and pick up that same player from almost anyplace, including every summer during free agency. Its not that there is NO talent down there, just that there no unique talent. Nothing to really hold out for. Guys can play, some of them, but nothign that is going to change the trejectory fo your franchise.

Figure college ball is basically the NBA's minors (now that they have taken steps to artificially infuse it with top talent again). That's where future major pieces of your franchise are under development. The great attraction of the minors for baseball is that nearly every major player passes through there. Not just a joe schmoe middle reliever with a 4.95 ERA, but every Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson too. There is none of that potential in basketball. You might be able to get a player who could help. And that's fine, and why the NBA has treid to create a system here. But just the occasional guy who can help, for part of a season or whatever, is not going to create any real excitement or be the basis for a major investment in a minor league system.

 

[est.1999]

6. Get rid of David stern

This will enable us to watch and enjoy a normal league

 

[KCKingsCountry]

Really a 30 team minor league system could work. Look how many good college players dont get drafted or go to Europe to play. Basically each team could be on the hook for 1 to 2 players, look at all the second round draft choices that are wasted each. Have local ownership of the teams so the NBA wouldnt be on the hook. I think it could work in the mid-sized markets that are starved for a team of their own. Now cities like Kansas City, Baltimore, St. Louis, Las Vegas, etc I would stay away from. Major league cities wouldnt support it but their are lots of others that would.

 

[FakeInjury]

One fan, in attendance recieves 10 minutes of "coaching experience" per game for both teams. Then, if there is a betting scandal, we can place blame on the fan who is selected. Like that movie with whoopie goldberg.

 

[Kingzrool]

I'd like to see players ineligible for the draft until after at least two years of college.

 

[Spike]

I'd like to see players ineligible for the draft until after at least two years of college.

I would too, but I don't see it happening. Some kids aren't interested in maintaining academic eligibility. The NCAA doesn't come down hard enough on offending programs that bend the rules, (I'm looking at you, USC and OSU.)
The college game would be even better for it. Perhaps schools could structure programs to those "one-and-dones" a little better by giving more of a basic economics/real world home ec. instead of Calc and Ancient History (or other requirements of a 4 yr track.) It's probably a discussion for another time, though, I think it'd be a good one.
In a sense, the college would concede that the kid isn't going to stay for 4 years, so they should to their best to prepare the kid w/ a 2 yr. track similar to JUCOs. Ideally, I'd like for the kid to say, "college is pretty cool - I think I'll stay and get my degree." However, I won't hold my breath.

Then there's the kids who may jump to Europe. I'm curious to see how that'll work. Will they like it and want to stay? Who knows.

 

[FakeInjury]

Draft them out of HIGH SCHOOL, if you are old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to be drafted.

 

[Kings Faithful]

I have a problem with your 2 minute idea. I don't think the rules of basketball should change just because of how much time is left. Its like saying "o there is 5 minutes left you can travel now" or "30 seconds left! All baskets count as 3's!!!". I don't want to change the rules of how the sport is played just so the ends of games dont last 15 minutes. I would sacrafice 15 minutes of my time to keep it the way it is.

 

[Spike]

Draft them out of HIGH SCHOOL, if you are old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to be drafted.

Service to one's country doesn't equate to playing a professional game for money, especially since the draft (Army) hasn't been around for decades. One is a government dictating its rules, the other is a private enterprise running their business as they see fit.
That being said, I still hold firm that younger players need to be prepared for life outside of the NBA. There's an economic side to it for the player, to be sure, but college can support a kid for one year.

 

[SacKings7]

2. A New Last 2-minutes Rule. In the last 2 minutes of each half, a foul committed by a defender would result in one foul shot and retaining possession of the ball for the offended team. It's tiring and not very good basketball to have the last 50 seconds of a game take 10-15 minutes to complete because of all the fouls.

I don't like this idea. Sure, the game does get tiring and it seems to drag on forever at times, but at the end of a close game, a team has to try and get the ball back and score. I like this rule for the end of the first half (or even the end of the first 3 quarters) but not for the 4th quarter. Having possession of the ball at the end of a game means everything in football, because the QB can just take a knee and run out the clock. But in basketball it SHOULD come down to making free throws, because so many games can and have been decided by missed free throws.

Besides that though, I agree with the rest of your post.

 

[mrlaze]

1. Get rid of multi-year guaranteed contracts. Maybe 2 years max. Then if the player didn't hold up his end of the performance he brings, he can get released or dealt or bought out. The lower 2/3 of the league are stuck with any number of 3-4-5 year contract players whose performance had become sub-par or who just did not fit the teams "system" and it drags them down and makes it much harder to crack into the top 10 teams in the league. KT and SAR are our examples, and Brad if he does not have a year like last year. This would not necessarily help the really dumm or stoopid GM's who just make bad decisions but it would give them an out in 2 years.

I think with the economy we will see a change in how teams throw money around. I think there needs to be more incentive/performance based salaries. I believe the NFLs contracts are that way. I'm not much for econ. and finances however. I'm sure the NBA PA would have a lot to say about it. And that I believe is at the crux of the problem with NBA contracts, NBA PA, they want their guys to be paid regardless.

2. A New Last 2-minutes Rule. In the last 2 minutes of each half, a foul committed by a defender would result in one foul shot and retaining possession of the ball for the offended team. It's tiring and not very good basketball to have the last 50 seconds of a game take 10-15 minutes to complete because of all the fouls.

Sounds interesting. I'd like to see it tried out somewhere first. At face value I think it would keep those last few minutes moving as you suggest.

3. Call the Fouls Committed Regardless of Who Did It. As pointed out below, this is totally subjective. I'll change this to more uniformly calling two fouls that now are not called hardly at all:
- lane violation for crossing into the paint before ball is out of the hands of the shooter;
- traveling when making a little skip-hop from a stand still to begin a dribble.

Call traveling and palming on everyone, all the time and I think we would see a dramatic change back to a better, more fluid half-court game. These two things are easily where refs make poor choice/make ups/star treatment/etc.

4. Setup a 30 team D-League like MLB AAA farm system. But make it easier to move more than 1 or 2 players back and forth. The River Cats, the AAA team for Oakland Athletics is a perfect example. The better the Cats did the better Oakland got by using those players after they had a chance to improve their games at the next highest level. This is big money and may not happen for many years.

Reno is a tiny market compared to Sacramento, the 20th TV market in the country. Big/bigger market teams have a much better revenue stream to count on for a D-league team they may have. It also impacts the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). My personal view is that to have a AAA farm system type setup the Union would want each team to have not 13 but 15 minimum players with up to 3 of those on the affiliated D-league team. Right now most teams want 12-13 active players able to play on the bench every night.

Isn't it 12 guys on the bench +3 on IRL right now?

If they made it so guys could move up and down in the leagues, and removed IRL or modified it to allow playing in the NBA DL. I think the 3 NBA teams per one NBA DL team makes little sense. Have DL teams of 5-8 players and don't make them play 5-6 games a week, make it 2-3. Let them be coached and then give them some time to practice at full speed. I think this would develop superior role players.

And there are plenty of players with NBA contracts that shouldn't have them. i.e. guys who are barely #12-13 on the bench, or perpetually on the IRL. Let them go down to DL, play and get better. Allow them to come up easily if an injury occurs.

5. Go to International Basketball (FIBA) Rules. That would widen the lane into a trapazoid (PurpleHaze had the right idea here), and spread out the bigs a bit more. Also enforce the free throw rule that "no player may step over the boundries of the zone (painted area in US) until the ball has left the hand of the free throw shooter". However, it is the US game that uses the bigs (Vlade, Shaq, Duncan, Howard, etc) as main points of the offense and has the low post offenses much more than the Euro game. Fine, this just spreads them out a bit.


I'm sure there are more I'll add. What do you all think?

I dint really have a comment on this. I would like to see more passing and shooting rather than run run run run. Thats street ball and Ill watch And-1 for that. I think a slightly bigger court would help open up cutting, driving. It might reduce some of the shirt grabbing and poking BS. It also may further glorify 1-on-1 play(which I am not a fan of) or it could force more zone defenses. But too often it seems to be a muck of players in the paint.


To the guy who said eliminate fouling out. Are you serious!? Did you ever play gorilla ball? Do you like having enforcers in the NBA? That's an utterly terrible idea. Six is fine for regular games. I would like to see them add one foul if the game goes OT. Not add one per OT, just one period.

 

[chrisnu]

Draft them out of HIGH SCHOOL, if you are old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to be drafted.

I would like a system similar to the MLB system. Players are either drafted out of high school, or they are required to play multiple years in college. I think at least two years of college ball would suffice. This will allow the people who are truly ready, talent-wise, to join the NBA straight out of high school, while giving other players the option to season their game in college.

 

[Superman]

With #3 I would like to add in this proviso -- I do not like foul outs. No other major sport out there has a device built in whereby you can go about getting the opposing team's best player disqualified. A few bad calls, a few of your guys jumping into a guy and flopping, and the whole game changes. Rather than countering that with the current wink wink nudge nudge protect the superstar system, I have gradually begun to favor the relatively radical idea of eliminating the foul out -- at 6 fouls you are not out of the game. Instead, with each subsequent foul by that same player, its 2 FTs and the ball for the other team. Penalizes the guy with the 6 fouls for hacking people, hurts his team if he continues to foul, but gets rid of the randomness of having your best players removed from the game. It also eliminates much reason for the refs to cheat on the best players' behalf.

The problem I have with that is now you're turning non-shooting touch fouls on the perimeter into flagrant fouls, whether the player's team is in the penalty or not. Offensive fouls and loose ball fouls, too. Maybe shooting fouls get you two and the ball, but not every foul. That's a bit much.

I think you could put a limit on only shooting fouls and clear path fouls, maybe four a game before you foul out. Don't count offensive fouls, loose ball fouls or perimeter touch fouls to the individual player's tally, but count them towards the team penalty. Then, once the team is in the penalty, the other coach gets to choose between one and the ball or two free throws, like NFL coaches accept or decline penalties. And 1's in the penalty stay the same.

I like that better.

 

[uolj]

I'd like to see players ineligible for the draft until after at least two years of college.

Isn't this going to effect next year?

 

[CruzDude]

MRLAZE..... currently the league requires 13 players under contract minimum and 15 maximum. Whether someone is injured or or not they count under the 13-15 rule. So no more Injured Reserve like in past years. Now I believe if you have the min 13 players under contract, you can send 1 to D-League but don't know how the injured/not able to play enters into this when there are 2 or 3. Last year the Kings sent no one to D-League but had KT and SAR on the roster for the year tho' neither played hardly at all.

My #3 items needs to be updated to indicate "having the refs call the fouls for traveling consistently and whenever they do that little hippity-hop starting up a dribble".

The #1 item, about "guaranteed contracts" is a double edge sword: on the one hand, owners and GM's want to "lock up" players they perceive are key so they have to live with the multi-year contract albatross they hang around their own necks, on the other hand, it stagnates player movement and demonstrates a horrible role model theme all too many kids from inner cities look up to, get big money whether you earn it or not. True, breaking the union would be big time tough, but maybe reduce the multi-years to a max of 2 with team options and increase the quantity of players under contract....... which would raise the salary cap........... which is the only thing keeping a reasonable lid on salaries.

The #5 FIBA rules I think are being discussed by the NBA this summer and the two most likely changes the NBA would pick up would be the trapezoid lane shape and some of the foul rules. The NBA would probably like FIBA to have courts the same size as NBA as they now are a tad smaller and the 3-pt line internationally is 2 feet shorter.

Otherwise I stick by my ideas..... for now.

 

[sidney]

Don't get rid of guaranteed contracts because that will never happen, but negotiate a generous buyout rate into the CBA (like 80% of the remaining contract) and then have that player salary come off the cap calculation.

The result would be that the player gets most of his money and can play elsewhere to make up the 20% and teams can rebuild much quicker instead of being stuck with forever contracts that aren't worth 20% of their value.

This would be similar to that one time cap waive that affected guys like Michael Finley a couple years ago.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

This would be similar to that one time cap waive that affected guys like Michael Finley a couple years ago.

Didn't that waive only apply to the luxury tax?

 

[uolj]

Yes.

 

[Kingzrool]

Isn't this going to effect next year?

Not that I know of. Link?

 

[uolj]

Not that I know of. Link?

No, it was just a question. I thought I heard somebody mention it on TV a while back. Perhaps they were saying that it will likely be 20 after the next collective bargaining agreement.