The NBA is constantly always looking for ways to shorten its games — which, on average, last just under two hours and 20 minutes even though each quarter is only 12 minutes long — and one area they’ve tried to cut time with in the past is free throw shooting.
In 2017, the NBA made it illegal for players to walk behind the 3-point line between free throws in an effort to save time. This year, the NBA G League will experiment with a rule that would not only shave time off of games, but entirely change the way professional basketball has played in the past.
According to Zach Lowe of ESPN, the G League will test out a new rule in where all shooting fouls will result in a single free throw worth one, two or three points depending on the type of shot attempt. The rule would not apply to the final two minutes of game or overtime periods. Here’s more details on the rule, per Lowe:
It marks the latest move — in both the G League and the NBA — to improve game flow and reduce the length of games. Officials estimate that moving to a “one foul shot for all the points” model will shave between six and eight minutes off of each G League game, says Brad Walker, head of basketball operations for the G League.
There’s no denying that taking one free throw as opposed to two or three will save time, but it also has the potential to create different and arguably more detrimental problems in the game.
According to FanSided’s Player Free-Throw Splits, players typically shoot four to five percent higher on their second free-throw attempt, meaning a change in the rule would result in some players having an overall worse free-throw percentage. For example, DeMar DeRozan shot 83 percent from the charity stripe last season, but he shot a better percentage on his second and third free-throw attempts than his first. Had DeRozan only had the one free-throw attempt, he would have finished the season making only 77.7 percent of his free-throws.
There’s also the fear that the prospect of getting two or three points for one shot would encourage players to seek fouls or flop from behind the 3-point line. If James Harden draws 7.6 fouls per game with the rules as is, imagine how many he’d average with a changed free-throw format.
Overall, though, it’s kind of nonsensical to essentially give players free points, especially considering games are often decided by how well a team does at the free-throw line. On top of that, those stoppages in play during free throws are critical to players stealing 30 seconds of rest so they don’t have to come out of the game. You’ll regularly see stars like LeBron James with hands on knees standing on the opposite end of the court trying to get a brief break so they can stay on the floor for more minutes. If the single free throw would shave 6-8 minutes off of game times, it would also shave that much time off of players getting rest without having to miss actual playing time.
For all of those reasons, it would be surprising to see the NBA adopt the G League’s newly introduced free-throw format, but it’s certainly something worth monitoring.
