Discussion: the NBA should be more like FIBA

NomarsFool

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These FIBA Rules Would Fix NBA

Posting this for discussion, not because I agree with it. I have a few problems with his thesis:

1) What is the evidence that the NBA has a problem? I realize the style of play may not be what this person prefers, but is there evidence that viewership or interest in the NBA is declining?

2) Across all sports, "too much scoring" is rarely, if ever, associated with less viewer interest.

3) He tries to link "too much scoring" with "too predictable results", which I think has no logical link, at all.

4) His best point could be around offensive variety. I think there could be some discussion around whether an offense focused on 3PA and layups, while being highly efficient, could be less entertaining. Similarly to in baseball whereby focusing on walks, strikouts, and homeruns could lead to more scoring, but less interesting baseball. The question, though, is how to fix that?

5) Putting aside the travel, palming, moving screens part - if they actually did do away with corner threes, what would be the impact on the game? Would we end up with more clutter (bad) or more passing (good)?
 

Humphrey

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Make the court wider by a couple feet so the corner shot is equidistant from the basket vis-a-vis the top of the key. I'd make it 55 feet so you can have a 24 1/2 foot shot (a little longer than it is now; or 56 w/a 25 foot distance).

Cannot happen in one off season, most likely, as certainly the extra 5 feet affects lower level seating in one way, shape or form.
 

BaseballJones

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At about $1,500 per seat per game, removing all the court side seats would cost teams a pretty penny over the course of a season.
 

luckiestman

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At about $1,500 per seat per game, removing all the court side seats would cost teams a pretty penny over the course of a season.
Depending on how they do it, you’re not eliminating courtside seats, you’re, you’re eliminating the last row or two at the back of the bottom section.

edit: I’m trying to think of they could still have courtside seats, like how much work it would entail.

This probably isn’t happening anyway. Game is as popular as ever.
 
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lexrageorge

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At about $1,500 per seat per game, removing all the court side seats would cost teams a pretty penny over the course of a season.
I would assume that those seats would be replaced by "new" courtside seats, seats that are now 3 or 4 rows back and so are quite a bit cheaper. Still, any real or perceived loss of gate revenue will be an issue for the owners that will need to be addressed before any proposal for widening the court goes anywhere.

Making the corner 3 a more difficult shot makes sense. But the complaints about too much scoring fall do not resonate for any of us that watched those tedious 70 point slogs in the late '90s.
 

Jimbodandy

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Yeah I don't know why we keep talking about the loss of courtside seats whenever this comes up. We'd be losing the last couple of rows in the bowl, not the first couple.
 

NomarsFool

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NBA ratings have been going down. What I don’t know is, is that a macro trend because of the popularity of streaming services or a disproportionate decrease in interest in the NBA. In other words, do we have evidence that the product is declining?
 

Kliq

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The NBA is very popular with younger people and kids, many of whom not only don't watch full games live, but have never even viewed any television product live on a consistent basis. They are consuming the game through YT highlights, moments on TikTok and other social media apps, and through video games. I don't see the ratings as expressly a problem with the NBA's popularity, especially when you consider the global growth of the game, but rather in a way to further monetize that interest beyond the typical TV-rights model.
 

Humphrey

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Yeah I don't know why we keep talking about the loss of courtside seats whenever this comes up. We'd be losing the last couple of rows in the bowl, not the first couple.
Absolutely. They might be able to do something about the bench area rows while they're at it as well. Like move some of those cast of thousands to the end line, frees up a few pricy locations. Or, perhaps, put a bunch of them high above courtside like in football. What the hell do all those people do during the game anyway?
Bottom line is there would still be celebrities and other rich folks the same distance away from the sidelines they are now.
 

ElUno20

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The NBA is very popular with younger people and kids, many of whom not only don't watch full games live, but have never even viewed any television product live on a consistent basis. They are consuming the game through YT highlights, moments on TikTok and other social media apps, and through video games. I don't see the ratings as expressly a problem with the NBA's popularity, especially when you consider the global growth of the game, but rather in a way to further monetize that interest beyond the typical TV-rights model.
Exactly. Almost a few hours after each game, there's a 10 minute highlight package available on YouTube. Young people love the nba, they just consume it in different dosages then we are used to.
 

BaseballJones

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Yeah I don't know why we keep talking about the loss of courtside seats whenever this comes up. We'd be losing the last couple of rows in the bowl, not the first couple.
I think the physical dimensions of arenas might make this not true? I don't know how it is everywhere, but there's only SO much space available on the floor. If you widen the court, it is, by definition, going to reduce the number of seats available on the floor.

Here's a seat map for Knicks games at MSG:

60667

Sections 10D, 11D, and 12D are on the floor. If you expand the court, you're going to lose the VIP 11 and VIP 12 rows, but actually, you'll really lose rows in 10D, 11D, and 12D, because wherever the court is, you'll have court side seats. But you'll still be losing seats on the floor. Looking at ticket prices, seats in that section for their upcoming game against the Heat are selling for $1,103 apiece on ticketcity.com.

So yeah, they're going to lose money if they expand the court. Unless they also raise ticket prices.
 

Jimbodandy

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I think the physical dimensions of arenas might make this not true? I don't know how it is everywhere, but there's only SO much space available on the floor. If you widen the court, it is, by definition, going to reduce the number of seats available on the floor.

Here's a seat map for Knicks games at MSG:

View attachment 60667

Sections 10D, 11D, and 12D are on the floor. If you expand the court, you're going to lose the VIP 11 and VIP 12 rows, but actually, you'll really lose rows in 10D, 11D, and 12D, because wherever the court is, you'll have court side seats. But you'll still be losing seats on the floor. Looking at ticket prices, seats in that section for their upcoming game against the Heat are selling for $1,103 apiece on ticketcity.com.

So yeah, they're going to lose money if they expand the court. Unless they also raise ticket prices.
Oh they're going to lose some money, sure. But shit happens. They did it when they made folks standardize their ice surface in the NHL too iirc. C. Montgomery Jacobs is probably still pissed.
 

the moops

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I think there would be little impact to scoring if you widen the court. Yes, corner three percentage will go down (may still likely be higher than above the break threes just because they tend to be more difficult to cover and lead to more open looks). But i think more space will result in higher two point percentage with more room for guys to maneuver.

I have zero data to back this up though :)
 

benhogan

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At about $1,500 per seat per game, removing all the court side seats would cost teams a pretty penny over the course of a season.
With a larger court, there would be more courtside seats. Basic geometry.

They'd re-price every row, since each is closer to the action until the very last row in the arena is eliminated.

ALSO It would only impact revenue on sellouts.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I think the physical dimensions of arenas might make this not true? I don't know how it is everywhere, but there's only SO much space available on the floor. If you widen the court, it is, by definition, going to reduce the number of seats available on the floor.

Here's a seat map for Knicks games at MSG:

View attachment 60667

Sections 10D, 11D, and 12D are on the floor. If you expand the court, you're going to lose the VIP 11 and VIP 12 rows, but actually, you'll really lose rows in 10D, 11D, and 12D, because wherever the court is, you'll have court side seats. But you'll still be losing seats on the floor. Looking at ticket prices, seats in that section for their upcoming game against the Heat are selling for $1,103 apiece on ticketcity.com.

So yeah, they're going to lose money if they expand the court. Unless they also raise ticket prices.
Well, they'd never do that
 

BrazilianSoxFan

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The NBA is very popular with younger people and kids, many of whom not only don't watch full games live, but have never even viewed any television product live on a consistent basis. They are consuming the game through YT highlights, moments on TikTok and other social media apps, and through video games. I don't see the ratings as expressly a problem with the NBA's popularity, especially when you consider the global growth of the game, but rather in a way to further monetize that interest beyond the typical TV-rights model.
Why would they? There is so much scoring that the first 3 1/2 quarters barely matters.
 

lovegtm

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I think there would be little impact to scoring if you widen the court. Yes, corner three percentage will go down (may still likely be higher than above the break threes just because they tend to be more difficult to cover and lead to more open looks). But i think more space will result in higher two point percentage with more room for guys to maneuver.

I have zero data to back this up though :)
People would generally see this as a positive, right? Make 2s a slightly better proposition and increase game diversity.
 

InstaFace

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The focus of the discussion so far on the court size I think misses some of the more significant (and interesting) suggestions.

So firstly, the guy's focus on this being an extreme offense era is clearly misplaced - there's nothing wrong per-se with more scoring. I am, however, open to his argument that a better more aesthetically-pleasing and consistently-called game can be found out there with a different enforcement balance. Let's ignore the grumpy-old-man interpretations of the video (and his suggestion of "fewer games"), and instead look at his actual discussion of rules:


1) Carries: players wait with the ball in their hand until the defender reacts and then move with it, which can beat anyone, even with good D (and given no hand checking allowed). We should aggressively call carries and ignore fans' pleas until the players adjust to the new normal.

This I agree with, even though complaints about carries are very old-man-ish. It would create more pass-driven offense (which I like), and also create more opportunities for steals (which are fun, and reward different styles of player).

I think the penalty doesn't have to necessarily be a turnover, though. The first time it happens in a possession it could be like a kick-ball, offense gets side-out - disincentive, disrupts rhythm, but the team doesn't feel so aggrieved.

2) The way Travels, Zero-Steps and Moving screens are called - offense given free rein even when it's completely unfair to the defender.

Moving screens are the most "definitely!" part of this video, for me. It's an unfair advantage to the offense. Yes, KG did it all the time, yes Al Horford gets away with it, I don't care, if you reset expectations then players will adjust. You shouldn't be able to get away with contact with a defender unless you're truly stationary.

Zero-steps (gather steps) are fine in my eyes. I don't want lots of turnovers upon receipt of the ball. If anything, I think travel calls upon receipt but in the course of making a player's first move are called way too often, and they're not preventing action against the spirit of the rule (which is "you can't run with the ball"). That said, the combination of gather-step plus two steps plus (if needed) a hop stop basically leads to things looking like handball, being able to run around with it in your hands, impervious to any attempts to dispossess you. We could do with further conservatism on how that's called, I think, but it's not the most urgent priority.

3) Adopt FIBA's bigger court and longer 3-point line.

I'm of two minds on this. Firstly, sure, you're giving up a few seats in the arena, but overall that impact is very small. But I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make. The high quality of the corner 3 today means that teams have to defend players over there more honestly, creating more room in the middle and more opportunity for around-the-horn passing and incisive cuts. The credible threat of the 3 helps, and sometimes the bluff is called, but if you can't defend the paint without helping off of someone posted up in the corner, you need to adjust your defensive tactics imo.

4) ...and removing the 3-second defensive rule, and allow hand-checking.

I could buy this, if you're not going to enlarge the court or eliminate below-the-break 3s. You've still protected the cutters with the restricted area under the basket. Lack of a 3-second rule won't stop layups and pretty plays around the basket, and it's a silly thing that is inconsistently called anyway. The guy's rationale for it is silly, though: "it will slow the game down and result in fewer possessions that end after 0 or 1 passes". The current ruleset favors passing-based penetration because you have to respect the 3 so much. If a big can just camp out in the paint, I don't know why the result would be more passing - seems likelier to be more mid-range jumpers.

Hand checking is a tougher one. It's one of the things people cite when they refer to the NBA's 80s-90s golden era as being tougher and and more physical. Clearly it was no barrier to pretty or entertaining basketball. And it gets at one of my biggest frustrations, which is foul calls on light incidental contact that clearly didn't alter the shot or "punish" the shooter in any way. So if "allow hand checking" helps prevent the gather-step-step invincible charges to the rim, and/or helps minimize ticky-tack foul calls, then I think it would help.


In other videos promoting Euro-style rules, the guy also suggests that the continuation rule on fouling shooters is whistled far too much in favor of the shooter, which I buy in theory, but also see how it's just about impossible to officiate it fairly on the continuum between gather - going up - releasing.

I'll also add that one of my favorite FIBA rules is allowing players to clear the ball off the rim after initial contact. So if it hits the rim and bounces up, you can jump up and clear it off (or put it in) without it being goaltending either way. That leads to a lot of fun plays, where the heads-up player who can effectively play above the rim is rewarded. It does lower FG% of course, but it's exciting, so that's a tradeoff worth considering.
 

BaseballJones

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One grumpy old man complaint I have is the three step sideways jumper that Tatum and Harden (and others) use. The only way it works is if two things are done EXACTLY right: (1) the hand cannot come under the ball - it has to stay on top of the ball, or on the side - and (2) the timing has to be just right for it to be a legal gather step.

I've seen rules experts explain this and they say that if these two conditions aren't met, it's definitely a travel. And the fact is, even the very best in the world at this move only do it right about half the time. So half the time even Tatum and Harden do it, it's a travel. Even more so for guys who aren't as good at it.

But they let it go ALL THE TIME. And what annoys me is the trickle down effect to lower levels and even pickup ball. I have guys at my university gym doing this move and it's just godawful to watch. I'm like, dude, that's a travel. And they say, no it's a gather step. And I'm like, it's only legal about half the time when JAMES HARDEN does it. And you, sir, are no James Harden.

Drives me crazy.


Tatum made a move the other day that was a hesitation dribble, but he literally put his hand completely under the ball and held it, waited for the defender to commit to the shot, then resumed his dribble, blew by the guy, then took THREE steps and scored.

No whistle.

"Oh wow what a crazy great move! Guys are so much better today than they were back then!"

Oh really? Like if Jordan or Worthy or Bird or Isiah Thomas or Gervin or Dr J weren't allowed to handle the ball like that that they wouldn't have been impossible to stop either?
 

reggiecleveland

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Big FIBA fan here.
Big thing here is just the way the NBA is reffed and FIBA. The post-up game is part of FIBA since the offensive player can be more physical and they call more fouls on defenders when people drive. They allow more physical D on the ball (remember the proud moment of the NBA players whining about how physical the game vs France was at the Olympics?) so penetration is harder, meaning throwing the ball into the key is more important. The drive and post-up are rewarded, It is a fairly simple fix. I basically coach the Curry of prairie province basketball. As the season goes on he has had to attack the hoop more, and is now shooting more FTS.