LOS ANGELES – Clippers fans bored of watching hack after hack could be in for a slight change this year, although Commissioner Adam Silver knows the alterations made aren’t as dramatic as some had called for.
The NBA announced changes this week to the away-from-the-play foul rules for the 2015-16 season, which Silver described as “a compromise” at a press conference this week.
“It’s not everything that some people were looking for us to do,” Silver said.
In the past, an intentional foul committed in the last two minutes of a game automatically resulted in a free throw and possession of the ball for the team getting hacked. Here are the following changes, according to the league’s release:
1) The current rule for away-from-the-play fouls applicable to the last two minutes of the fourth period (and last two minutes of any overtime) – pursuant to which the fouled team is awarded one free throw and retains possession of the ball – will be extended to the last two minutes of each period.
2) For inbounds situations, a defensive foul at any point during the game that occurs before the ball is released by the inbounder (including a “legitimate” or “natural” basketball action such as a defender fighting through a screen) will be administered in the same fashion as an away-from-the-play foul committed during the last two minutes of any period (i.e., one free throw and possession of the ball).
3) The flagrant foul rules will be used to protect against any dangerous or excessively hard deliberate fouls. In particular, it will presumptively be considered a flagrant foul if a player jumps on an opponent’s back to commit a deliberate foul. Previously, these type of fouls were subject to being called flagrant but were not automatic.
In summary, the main points are that teams now can’t hack a player in the last two minutes of any quarter, and defensive fouls of any sort prior to an inbounds pass will receive the same penalty as an away-from-the-play foul in the last two minutes of a quarter.
Oftentimes, teams hoped to slow down the dynamic Clippers’ offense and DeAndre Jordan, who averaged a career-high 12.7 points per game and finished with a 70.3 field goal percentage on his way to being named the All-Defensive and All-NBA First Teams, by sending Jordan to the line.
So, how much will the new rules alter that strategy?
While Silver admitted the changes are more of a compromise than a grandiose shift away from hacking, if last year is any indication, the changes could still make an impact, at least in Jordan’s case.
Head coach Doc Rivers always said he thought the best hacking strategy was to do it when the team hacking an opponent was already winning, to prevent the opponent from catching up. Usually, however, teams resorted to the “hack-a” strategy only as a last ditch effort when trailing.
That often meant at the end of quarters.
Jordan was intentionally fouled 142 times last season, with 49 of those hacks occurring in the last two minutes of a quarter. Only three of those 49 hacks away from the ball were illegal under last year’s rules, because they occurred in the last two minutes of specifically the fourth quarter.
That means 46 more of those hacks – nearly a third of the total amount of times Jordan was intentionally fouled last year – weren’t illegal last year but would’ve been had the rules for the upcoming season been in effect.
“In looking at the data and numerous potential solutions to combat the large increase in deliberate away-from-the-play foul situations, we believe these steps offer the most measured approach,” Kiki VanDeWeghe, NBA executive vice president of basketball operations, said in the league’s release. “The introduction of these new rules is designed to curb the increase in such fouls without eliminating the strategy entirely.”
Teams can still foul away from the ball as much as they please the first 10 minutes of every quarter – and may now be tempted to do so significantly more often than they had last year. But, last season showed a significant chunk of the “hack-a-Jordan” strategy occurred in the last two minutes of quarters.
Jordan took 115 trips to the free throw line following intentional fouls last year, 38 of which occurred in the last two minutes of quarters. With the new rule changes, those numbers could see a dip.
The hacking strategy’s unlikely to disappear, but if nothing else, it’s potentially a start in lessening its usage.