Rules Changes

Rules were made to be broken, right? Or in some cases... changed.

I am a big fan of the new goal tending rule. I despise goal tending and basket interference in most forms. My opinion is, if the ball goes through the hoops, it means points. If it doesn't, no points. So simple, right? This rule is a step in the right direction. If the ball isn't yet in the rim, the defender should be allowed to take a swipe at it. Now he can.

While I like the change, it is going to have a dramatic impact on the way teams play defense and how players learn to play defense, which can be really bad for those trying to make it to the NBA. It's great for guys with international experience/aspirations, but if the goal of the league is to develop players to play in the NBA, then isn't this rule change somewhat counterproductive? Maybe in the short run. However, in the long run, if the change works in the NBA Development League, it'll likely be changed in the NBA as well, making it a productive switch.

Shortening overtime from five minutes to three minutes is a great move. I never understood why overtime was five minutes. That means it was 41.67% of the length of a regular quarter. Who wakes up one day and says, man, we need to figure out how to resolve ties, so let's have the teams play part of a quarter, but half a quarter is too long... How about 41.67%? Perhaps they were looking at it in game terms. Well, a game is 48 minutes, so five minutes is 10.4167%. This theory is a little more justifiable (maybe they wanted to do 10%, but since that's not a round number, they rounded to the closest minute).

Anyway, three minutes makes perfect sense. It's one quarter of one quarter. If basketball is a game this is broken up into four quarters, and they're not going to play full quarter in overtime, why not break-up a quarter into quarters? Sheldon Cooper would be proud.