The NBA should get rid of its stupid basket interference rule

DeAndre Jordan appeared to tap in the game-winner for the Clippers Tuesday night. Instead, thanks to one of the NBA’s worst rules, it was waved off:

Jordan touched a shot that had already hit the rim above the hypothetical cylinder of the basket, which is basket interference. Here’s the super slo-mo, thanks to @hpbasketball. You can see that the shot’s last touch on the rim makes it bounce closer to the rim’s center rather than away. Jordan fails to make the split-second cognitive decision not to touch the ball after that bounce, and touches a shot that was probably already going in, ensuring that it does go in.

In international play, this is not a penalty. Defensive players can smack the ball while it’s above the rim to make the shot miss. Offensive players can tip it in or slam it home. The only thing that matters is whether the ball ends up going in or not. This play would be a basket, because it went in the basket. In the NBA, it is basket interference. The Spurs got the ball. The Spurs won.

It’s easy to see why there is an NBA rule against goaltending. If there wasn’t, teams would employ super-tall and super-athletic people to just stand a foot in front of the rim with their hands up. Scoring would plummet as jumpers became impossible, with the 7-footer in front of the hoop needing to only slightly adjust to stop shots from anywhere along the three-point arc. Every shot that goes on a downward trajectory on its way into the hoop -- i.e., every single shot -- would be significantly more difficult to make.

It’s a lot harder to see why basket interference is on the NBA’s playbooks. Not the parts of the rule about slapping the rim and backboard, or putting your hand through the hoop to block shots -- those make sense -- but the part about how you can’t touch a ball above the cylinder after hitting the hoop. It doesn’t come into play on most shots -- just shots that initially miss after hitting rim, and don’t immediately bounce off. There’s no way to game for this. The ball stays above the rim on a pretty small percentage of shots. And when it does, it does so for brief moments.

To get to a ball in those moments requires quick thinking and great athleticism. Players have to spot that a ball is hovering above the goal, instantaneously elevate and either spike it or slam it. If players were allowed to touch balls above the rim, we’d see a lot more tip slams and a lot of nifty taps to prevent shots from going in. That would be cool. If you’ve ever watched FIBA play, it adds an interesting element to the game. It’s actively fun.

Instead, the NBA’s rule leads to tremendously talented athletes hesitating in mid-air. We see players jumping and ... thinking. “is the ball above the cylinder? Is it safe to touch?” This is actively not fun.

And basket interference is one of the hardest rules in basketball to officiate. Many calls an official makes are based on painted lines on the court -- out-of-bounds, backcourt violation, the charge circle -- and as we know, these are hard enough for refs to officiate on the fly.

Basket interference asks the referee to imagine a cylinder extending upwards from the hoop to the heavens, and asks them to determine whether any part of the ball was within that hypothetical cylinder at the specific instant it was touched by a hand. Even on video review, we often find ourselves asking if the ball was in the mythical cylinder or if the player’s hand just waited long enough. For 46 minutes of NBA games, refs are supposed to make this call on the fly, even without slow-motion replay, and they’re supposed to make it from the wrong vantage point and, you know, several feet below the rim.

It’s admittedly rare that a game comes down to a basket interference call like it did in Clippers-Spurs. But it doesn’t need to ever happen. Maybe last night can be the impetus to change that. Maybe we can finally stop asking dynamic high-flyers to get close to making spectacular plays and cease taking action in mid-air, scared of breaking a rule that doesn’t need to exist.