The NBA Explained Their New Rule Changes And James Harden Won't Be Happy About Them

Kevin C. Cox. Getty Images.

When Shams gave us word a few months ago that the NBA was finally going to step up and correct some of the bullshit fouls we've come to see these last few seasons, it was music to my ears. They had a legit problem where guys weren't even doing basketball moves yet were being bailed out time and time again. They kept doing it because they knew the officials were going to give them that call. This was very apparent during the Olympics when those same calls did not exist and the refs pretty much told Team USA to stop being little bitches looking for bail outs. As you can expect they adjusted, and the rest is history. My hope is the same will happen in the NBA now that we can all be on the same page. 

The league took to Twitter to give us video examples of how things will be different, so let's have a look

Everyone good? Hard to complain with these adjustments since they were so desperately needed. 

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OK so this is a good example of where things can get tricky. Randle jumped forward in an illegal angle, but it's not a foul because he doesn't really make contact. I think I can live with that. I wouldn't hate if they also called this offensive, but I'm fine with making it a play on. This is the type of stuff that simply cannot be a foul, and it looks like it won't be.

This is something that I feel a lot of fans will complain about at first when their favorite team's star does it. Whether that's in GS, ATL, BKN, DAL, etc. The big thing here will be determining how the player jumped. If Steph went straight up and still got hit from behind, that's a foul. But jumping into the guy and landing outside of his normal floor position is where the foul turns offensive. It might take some getting used to, but I don't hate this adjustment. The defender has just as much right to the space as Curry, so this makes some sense. Again, fans will likely complain the most about these types of plays, but I don't hate it.

I'm not totally sure this was the best example they could have used to show the extended leg foul. That just looked like his normal shooting motion. Dillion Brooks didn't go up for a shot, see a guy was right there and then kick his leg out. That type of shit should be an offensive foul. Who could debate that. I'm just not totally sure the play they showed should be an offensive foul. If they are going to get that specific with it, there are going to be a lot of leg kick offensive fouls next season.

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Welcome to the James Harden play. While I understand the idea behind this rule change, again I'm not totally sure they used the right clip. Mitchell's arm is technically extended into George's shooting space. That wasn't an abnormal hook. In my opinion this play should be a defensive foul not a no call. There are way more examples they could have used that show someone like Harden pulling off an off arm hook. 

All in all, these adjustments should make the game better to watch. It was very annoying to see a team play flawless defense for 23 seconds only to then be bailed out by a guy launching forward on a shot that had no business of even coming close to going in. The league had to do something about it and at least they acted quickly. Now we'll just have to see how certain teams adjust. Guys like Young, Steph, Luka, Harden etc all had these moves as big pieces of their arsenal. It's what made them so tough to guard. For so long the league made all these adjustments to help the offense and it sort of boned the defenders. You can't hand check, you can't do shit. At least now they are given a fighting chance because bullshit like we saw last year will no longer fly.

I imagine that once players get used to this new way of calling a game, they'll adjust. They only did this shit in the first place because they knew they could bait the officials into it. You now tell the officials how to call plays like this, it'll slowly work its way out of the game. That's a good thing.

While we're at it, the league should adopt the FIBA rules for both the shot clock violation continuation as well as the unsportsmanlike foul when someone commits a foul on the break. I love that rule. Two shots and the ball for pulling that shit is the perfect way to get that out of the NBA too. Nothing worse than a team about to start an awesome fastbreak only for someone to hug a player as they get going, blowing the play dead. Grow up and don't turn the ball over, or run back and try and contest. 

The league knew it had a problem and they took action. Now it's time to see which players can adjust and which were heavily relying on those bail out calls. Should be interesting.