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If you've played NBA Street, you know there are no fouls. This would give guys who never made it to college a chance to audition for a national audience, and perhaps, make a Rocky-like leap onto an NBA D-League roster. What might be nice as well is to let the halftime festivity be a sort of Gong Show for local court legends nominated by local basketball experts. Heavy police presence and a cordoning off roads would of course be needed, but that could be paid for by the revenue generated from a special television deal. Local youth and mentors could be awarded the handful of seats, because the audience should be like the normal crowd of folks who would gather for a street game. The Streetball Classic could take place in December, on the anniversary of James Naismith's invention of the game, in warmer cities, and to kick off the season in cities with colder climates. This contest would return NBA players to the atmosphere in which they played simply for the love of the game. I'm not a big fan of Olympic diving, but I will never forget the breathtaking sight in 1992 of divers standing on the platform with the city of Barcelona resplendent in the background. We could even call it the NBA Streetball Classic.Ītmosphere makes a difference. Why couldn't that happen in real life? Why couldn't each team pick a local street court and play one home game on it every year, much like hockey's Winter Classic? It humanizes the NBA like no other video game I've ever seen, because suddenly our hardwood heroes are hooping it up right where we do. Putting the game on outdoor ice hearkens back to a better time for hockey and a simpler time for America.Īnyone who has ever played NBA Street knows not only how addictive it is (it's one of the reasons I had to give my PlayStation II away), but how oddly heartwarming it is. Gary Bettman's team has greenlighted a grand total of one good idea-actually proposed by NBC Sports: the Winter Classic. The NHL is universally and rightfully maligned as a mismanaged miasma. But man, would it up the action on-court. I speculate the league would have a fight on its hands from the Players Association, simply because of the greater potential risk of injury to players. Passes could be made off the wall like billiard shots, adding to game complexity.Ĭhasing a loose ball would provide new meaning to the phrase "giving up your body to make the play."Īnd owners, who love the revenue those pricey courtside folding-chair seats bring in, could encroach even closer upon the action, putting the prime seating right against the wall itself. You'd have to play the ball off the carom. All blocked shots would remain in play, unless they somehow cleared the wall. Why not build a wall surrounding each court, soft enough to absorb bodies crashing into it, but strong enough that a ball would bounce off it? (Hey, there's an idea: glow-in-the-dark balls and uniforms!) How else could we make NBA basketball more fun? Let's take some shots in the dark. So defensive players would be more careful, action would be more continuous and everybody would win. And let's face it: Though the strategy of sending the bad free-throw shooter to the line can work, nothing in basketball is more boring.įor that matter, the incentive to foul in the first place would go way down.
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With the three-to-make-two rule, Hack-a-Shaq would have never existed. Game pace would be ramped up while still allowing for stout defensive play. Instead of legislating limitations to defensive effectiveness in order to speed up play, the NBA could simply bring that rule back today. In the late '70s, the league introduced a short-lived " three free-throw chances to make two" rule. So I say the game could benefit from a little shaking up.Īnd I'm talking about something more than a red, white and blue ball. I'm up for anything that enhances my basketball-watching experience. And that innovation made watching them fun.