For as much as everyone loves the game of basketball, one of the most frustrating things that can happen in an NBA game is the final couple of minutes taking 20 or 30 minutes to finish up. Constant timeouts are one of the issues, but arguably the biggest cause of this is the official reviews, which seem to drag on forever even on the most obvious of calls.
In the final two minutes of the game, officials can automatically review any call they are unsure about and the most common of those is the out-of-bounds play. Any close call will see the officials go over to the monitor and check in super slow motion whose fingertips the ball went out on. When this happens multiple times it can be extremely annoying to everyone from the players to the fans, and really serves to hinder the excitement.
The league, however, has been exploring some ways to remedy this issue. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the NBA Board of Governors will vote to approve a rule to make the coach’s challenge the only way to review out of bounds calls at the end of the game:
Sources: The NBA Board of Governors will vote this month to approve the Coach’s Challenge being the lone method to review out-of-bounds calls with under two minutes left in games, meaning out-of-bounds plays will no longer be automatically triggered for officials.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 13, 2021
This will eliminate the prolonged stoppages that occur at times late in NBA games. https://t.co/ThlYWOh49h
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 13, 2021
The idea of this makes a lot of sense. Nobody enjoys those moments where the reviews drag on for so long as people want to see the end of the game. The fact that it is automatically triggered any time it is even seemingly a close call allows for multiple reviews in a short time span and this will remedy that.
The only concern is that currently, coaches still only have one challenge for the entirety of the game. Should this pass, it would make it so that coaches would almost always want to save that challenge until the final two minutes except in the most extreme of cases.
As is always the case under Adam Silver, the league is taking a hard look at the things that need to change and figuring out ways to improve them. This move would certainly help to remedy one of the most complained about issues in NBA games, but perhaps adding a second coach’s challenge would even things out as well.
NBA veteran Kenneth Faried works out for Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, are still looking at potential players to fill out the end of their roster and as has been the case, are eyeing potential veteran pieces. One name that they supposedly have interest in is wing James Ennis, but perhaps another big man is on the way as veteran Kenneth Faried is also reportedly working out for the team.
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