Yes, and so teams intentionally give the ball to good FT shooters when this happens. This thread is about the hack-a whatever, which is qualitatively different.
That's not it at all. The rules would be to protect the game of basketball by not turning it into a spectacle where two players 50 feet from the ball are chasing each other in a game of tag. I don't see how people are not getting this...take the free throws out of the equation and focus on what happens before the free throws. Primarily, the logic of making it within rules to allow one player to chase another player away from the ball and touch him. Please explain to me how that does not reduce basketball to a game of tag? What part of basketball is being preserved by continuing to allow that?
I do think the rule should be changed. First off I do agree with a lot of people in that the way to stop it is to make free throws. Players should be able to hit at least 50% at the line. I think that is a reasonable expectation out of any NBA player. On the flip side of the above I do understand that NBA Players, especially big men have huge bodies and their hands are enormous compared to the average person which makes shooting much more difficult because the ball is too small at least for them. Think of how when you would play on those mini-over-the-door basketball rims and the ball was basically the size of a softball. Its near impossible to shoot it with two hands. I think some players would probably shoot better if they shot the free throws with just one hand instead of two. But my biggest issue with the intentional foul is that its not in the spirit of the game at all. I do not believe that a team should benefit for breaking the rules of the game (fouling) Fouls are meant to help the disadvantaged player not make things worse. Not to mention it helps the other team basically rest on defense and disrupt any flow. But I don't think any sport should have a loophole/rule that would allow a team to benefit by breaking the rules. I would suggest the following changes: 1) make the 2 minute no intentional fouling a rule for every quarter. This would prevent teams from gaining an extra possesion at the end of quarters by intentionally fouling. Similar to what Doc Rivers did against the Rockets a few weeks ago. 2) No player may be intentionally fouled more than twice in one quarter and no player may be intentionally fouled on consecutive offensive possesions. For part 2 - it would still mean any terrible FT shooter can still shoot up to 8 FTs a game but it doesnt get so excessive all at once so that both teams can have some sort of flow to their game. so for example: team fouls Dorsey - he goes to the line misses both next player the team can still intentionally foul but they cannot choose to foul Dorsey again. If they decide to let the Rockets to run offense fine. Next Rockets possession they can choose to foul Dorsey again -- if they do they cannot foul him again for the rest of the quarter. I think this would eliminate the crazy scenarios where a team just grinds a game and ruins it but still allows the hack strategy to still exist.
The most simple solution is to just allow a team to decline the free throws when they are in the bonus and an off-the-ball foul occurs. I think it's a no-brainer. Doesn't require any extra tracking of who was fouled. Doesn't force the refs to have to make a judgement whether it was intentional or not. Some have suggested to even allow the same option for non-shooting-on-the ball fouls or even shooting fouls, but that opens up a can of worms and I think would be too much of a shock to the game. It messes with the long-standing cliche of "making him earn it at the line rather than give up an easy bucket," and would make a mess of how fouls are used towards the end of games.
Just an idea, but why stop at the in-game penalties? I e-mailed this to the NBA front office... Greetings NBA front office, I am writing this e-mail to propose an action against coaches who use the "hack" strategy on teams and/or individual players during the regular play of the game. The proposal is a simple take on the "If you do 'a' because of 'b', then why don't you do 'c' because of 'd'?" principle. Basically, the reference is to flopping. Flopping in the NBA for a number of years was a distractor to the game, and as you know has recently been reduced, due to the administering of fines to NBA players who have been deemed to be frequent floppers. My proposal is simple, if you fine NBA players for flopping, why can you not fine NBA coaches for directing his team to hack their opponents? When a player flops, his attempt is to draw a foul, a "fake" foul, with the direct intention of halting the opposing team's play. When a coach calls for the hacking strategy, they are committing a foul, a "fake" foul, with the direct intention of halting the opposing team's play. It's the same concept, with the same intent, but just converse executions.
Well, there certainly isn't a whole lot of chasing going on, but if that is your concern, and the free-throws aren't the issue (you said to take them out of the equation), then I have a solution that you can't possibly disagree with. The defense has the option to notify the ref that they would like to charge one of their players with a foul and select which player on the offense has to shoot the free-throws. They'd call it similar to the offense calling a timeout. Everything happens just the way it does now, but you don't have two players chasing each other 50' from the basket. You are on board with this solution, right? (Before the rest of the readers who struggle to follow along, this solution is only presented to DCKid and isn't anything that I would endorse) Know how I know you never played basketball? Teams benefit from fouling all of the time. How many times has Dwight Howard ended up with the ball deep in the post, only to be wrapped up and having to earn them at the line? How many times have the Rockets (or any other team) fouled a player going up for a break-away layup to avoid giving them an "easy basket"? What about fouling at the end of a game to stop the clock, hope for a miss or two at the line, and a chance to get back in the game? All benefiting from fouling, no? Oh, you just don't want teams to benefit from some fouls. Surely you have a perfectly reasonable and easily implemented way of ensuring this: Oh my...can you imagine trying to keep up with this? And you said this would eliminate crazy scenarios? I am, hand to God, laughing almost to tears over here. What a nightmare fan experience that would be.
Easy administrative fixes: Make the bonus optional outside of last 2 min Make any intentional off-the-ball foul the same as last 2 min (2 shots, +pick your shooter, + possesion) Give intentional off-the-ball fouls 3 FTA to make 2 outside of last 2 min The Hack-a-is effecively gone with the first 2, it could still be around in the last one but the math starts to tilt against it (unless you're Clint Capela).
Just leave it as is and force the guys to learn to shoot free throws. The only thing that scares me is the fact that they probably have no motivation to do so since they'll get paid either way.
Somebody should start a petition to change the rule (not that it would work but it could bring more attention to the problem). I see a lot of good ideas on here. The NBA has to fix this. Until then we need to figure out a way to get better at free throws. I don't think its from a lack of practice. I know the idea of Calvin coming in as a free throw coach as been mentioned before but in a joking manner. But why the hell not?? I definitely couldn't hurt.
Because it's not about coaching. It's psychological. These guys shoot free throws at a 70% clip in practice. It's about what happens in a game.
It has devolved to chasing before...but we can call it tagging if that is more suitable to you. And no it's not just the chasing/tagging...it's that players chasing/tagging each other is not basketball. It has nothing to do with the play. Just like your procedural solution is also not basketball.
This is brilliant dood. Sicne we don't even have to put the ball in play, why don't we just skip the free throws which are boring as hell anyway. The offense can take the fouled player's FT% * 2 FTA as their points on the scoreboard- you can move scoring here to a decimal point out to account for this. Then you can go back to a jump ball in the offense's team's half to determine possession afterwards. People like jump balls, they are much more exciting than FT's.
Well, they have this thing called an 'intentional foul', that is never, ever called. What this kind of basketball is, is exactly that, an intentional foul, which is in the rule book. A 'hack' like that should be 1 and the ball. It's one thing to stop a dunk in the post by a smaller guy or from being out of position. It's something totally different to run up to someone not in the play and hack them.
Argue about whatever you want. I'm in the "leave the rules alone and make your damn free-throws" camp. It is everyone else that watched the Rockets put on a woefully inadequate display from the free-throw line in a loss, then started looking to the NBA to change the rules to make up for it.
We know what camp you're in. Beneath the dead olive trees which now stand in the barren, rocky soil as mocking reminders of life amidst a sea of death.
You do know that intentionally fouling can only occur in the last two minutes of the game if the player has the ball, right? Also, you do know that we're talking about fouling players away from the ball in this thread? I'm not meaning to be rude, but I can't tell if you are familiar with the rules, nor can I tell if you have reached an understanding of what this thread is about.
