Why stop at free throws? 6 other rule changes we want to see in the G League

The NBA has never been afraid to experiment with its rules. From adding the shot clock and creating goaltending in the 1950s to the implementation of the three-point line in 1979, the league has long shown a willingness to tinker with tradition for the sake of watchability, at least as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the money.

Its latest bold experiment was announced on Thursday: starting in the G League this season, players will only take one free throw that will count for all of the potential points in the play. If a player is fouled on a three-pointer, he’s taking one free throw worth three points, save for the last two minutes of the game and overtime when the traditional foul shot rules are re-adopted. The goal is to shorten the length of the game, ideally to under two hours.

Why stop at cutting down free throws? If the NBA is set to use the G League as its official incubator for its biggest experiments, we came up with a few other rules changes that are worth trying.

When the media once asked Antoine Walker why he shoots so many threes, the longtime Celtics forward provided the only sensible answer: “Because there are no fours.” Let’s imagine the world he’d like to live in.

The NBA has been considering a four-point line since at least 2014. There are teams all over the league — most notably the 76ers and Hawks — who have four-point lines drawn on the court during practices, typically drawn five-feet behind the three-point line at a shade under 28 inches. There are already publicly available statistics on shooting percentages from even greater distances.

A four-point line might produce some brutal individual misses, but overall would boost offense. Why? Because a four-point line means a greater area to defend, which means better spacing for the offense. As we’ve seen during this current era, the league’s best players are absolutely unstoppable in space.

If you think the idea of a four-point line sounds crazy, just imagine how people must have felt about the three-point line when the ABA introduced it in the late ‘60s. It only sounds outlandish until it happens.

Speaking of more space: how about widening the court? For one, it would eliminate the short corner three, which just so happens to be the most popular and most efficient shot in the modern NBA. Making the three-point line 23.75 inches all around, and not 22 inches in the corners, just makes logical sense.

A wider court would also mean more space for the best athletes in the world to to dazzle us with their speed, strength, and explosiveness. Imagine Giannis Antetokounmpo rumbling to the hoop with even more room created by a wider court. Imagine how much more real estate Steph Curry would be able to attract attention on to open things up for his teammates. If the NBA wants to take this current era of unprecedented offensive growth to another level, widening the court is the best way to do it.

In the NBA, goaltending is called if the ball is touched while still over the cylinder of the rim. In FIBA, players can legally touch the ball immediately once it hits the rim. The FIBA rules can create some mesmerizing above-the-rim moments, like when Bruno Caboclo had a game-winning blocked free throw to beat Greece.

There is nothing more exciting in basketball than an above-the-rim play. Adopting FIBA’s goaltending rules in the NBA would do just that. Rim protectors like Rudy Gobert would suddenly become even more valuable. There could be an entire niche of players who were particularly skilled at swatting shots off the rim and maintaining possession. Think of all the tip dunks, too.

This seems like the most realistic rule change for the near future. We’re in for it.

ESPN contributor Kirk Goldsberry introduced this idea only a few months ago:

How do we create the perfect blend of perimeter action, slashing drives, post-up actions, and fast breaks? That’s a hard question, but one way to reduce loitering on the perimeter is to enact the same rules the league has applied to interior players. For instance, what if we simply added the three-second rule to the corner-3 zone? We could encourage movement on the perimeter and discourage all that standing around

Making two players stand in the corners all game is analytically smart, but not the most exciting brand of basketball. By apply the same three seconds rule in the corners the league already has in the paint, players would be forced to move more freely off the ball and not just space the floor as far as possible.

If the NBA wants games to finish more quickly, why not just shorten the actual length of the game? Instead of four 12-minute quarters for a 48-minute game, they could switch to four 10-minute quarters for a 40-minute game. It would help reduce wear-and-tear on players and accomplish the tight broadcast window the league clearly wants.

Shortening the game to 40 minutes would impact statistical touchstones. A 50-point game would be so much more difficult to get, for example. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record for points scored in a career would be untouchable. Individual scoring averages would go down. On the other hand, per-game statistics are already pretty much only used by the most casual fans. New historical thresholds would pop up. Instead of messing with the structure of the game to shorten it, the easiest alternative is to trim two minutes off each quarter.

A long-running NBA truism is that the last minute of a game actually takes 15 minutes. Few coaches trust their players in crunch-time, preferring to call a timeout and set up a play rather than let their players make something happen.

What if they didn’t have the option? Eliminating live ball timeouts, especially in crunch-time, would put the onus back on the players. The end of games would be so much more exciting without stoppages and it would shave valuable minutes off the overall run-time.

More chaotic buzzer-beaters, fewer timeouts to draw something up. The G League is the perfect place to try it out.