Just curious what are everyone's thoughts on how the NBA would have been different if the defense rules in the 1990s were kept in place. Refresher on what changed: *Eliminate the illegal-defense rule next season, thus allowing teams to use any defense, including the zone. To win approval, 20 votes are needed. In a straw poll two weeks ago, 22 representatives voted to pass the changes. *Shortening the 10-second rule to bring the ball past midcourt to eight seconds. *Redefining incidental contact to cut down on touch fouls. Some commentary by Rudy T when the new rules were passed: It seems though that the Rockets still managed to undermine the league's "solutions"... just years later: Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/12/...ense-rule-will-most-likely-be-eliminated.html
Eliminating illegal defense was supposed to reduce 4 out ISO, which it did. Now teams are finding other ways to ISO, thanks to the 3pt shot spacing, a.k.a. Small Ball.
It ended the low post/big man era. Hubie Brown (whole coaching Memphis) is credited as the first coach to utilize the fronting/zone defense on Yao in the low post, which basically every team afterwards attempted to emulate. With better spacing and more strength training, Yao was still able to get the ball on the block, but it took a lot of effort/coordination... in the end, teams basically phased out any semblance of the low block game.
it's hard to imagine what guys like lebron and harden would do to illegal defense rules from a passing perspective. they already identify open players in ways few people ever have. i can't imagine them in a world of 5-out basketball with completely telegraphed double teams or with defenders having to press up on 3 point shooters to avoid illegal D whistles instead of sagging into the lane to defend the drive. think about every harden/capela pick and roll you've ever seen and now picture the help defenders having to help from a few feet further away. watch the '95 finals with hakeem and shaq getting doubled and you can see how hamstrung the defenses are in terms of having to wait to double on the catch and then having to come all the way over on the double. the defenders almost make a show of it to ensure the refs understand they are doubling and not breaking the rules. no zoning the weakside. no stopping halfway on your way to the double otherwise that's illegal defense. i don't even know what defense you would design against the likes of lebron/curry/harden/lillard/luka/giannis as scorers with so many 3 point shooters to help on. i mean steve francis and cuttino mobley ran a competent offense based purely on iso'ing on one side of the court. i really think yao could've averaged 30 ppg a few times in the 80's. his lack of mobility would've limited him from completely greatness in some facets of the game (not sure he would ever handle double teams that well), but in a world where big guys basically just jogged to the left block with no real resistance until they caught the ball and double teams were a long way off because of illegal defense, yao would have just caught and turned over and over again with no way to really contest his shot. and since he could actually shoot, i don't know what keeps him from scoring. i mean he averaged 25 ppg on 60 TS% one season for us, even with the incredible effectiveness of the fronting strategy. once he actually got the ball, it was usually very difficult for the defense to stop him. the only thing that might have limited him is that we dedicated a ton of possessions to getting yao the ball (the stats don't show all the wasted possessions where we ran down the shotclock and never got it to yao) and 80s offenses were a little more egalitarian, so maybe 25-28 ppg would've still been the peak, but i think he would've wrecked teams back then.
The only team that got away with zone before the rule change was the Sonics with George Karl's 1-3-1 zone that they ran but masked it enough to fool the refs.
