The NBA are reportedly moving towards making a change to the regulations which will see a new way to combat the ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ strategy being adopted by teams.
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NBA commissioner Adam Silver has remained non-committal over any proposal as he continues to sit on the fence, but with the issue becoming more and more prominent, it could force a change this summer.
“A rule change that would punish teams for intentionally fouling so severely as to eradicate the scourge from NBA games already is on the unofficial agenda for the competition committee’s July meeting in Las Vegas,” a league source told CBSSports.com.
It is understood that an intentional foul away from the ball would result in a technical foul shot and possession, which would in turn destroy the tactic of ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ which has also applied particularly to both Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan in recent years.
The strategy has been widely criticised as it not only breaks up the flow of the game for both teams, but it is also bitterly irritating for fans to watch as play is consistently stopped with a player heading to the free-throw line.
However, the counter-argument is that those players should work on their free throws until they get it right, which in turn would make the tactic void from the opposing team as they would continue to stop the clock just for the other team to score two points each time.
Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt discussed the issue on Monday, revealing that it is a gentleman’s rule in Europe that they do not adopt such tactics, and so no teams engage in the process.
It is likely to be impossible to now apply that to the NBA, so the league will have to consider their options moving forward on how to remove it from the game.
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