Playing by the rules

PARIS (The Monday International Show) - Anyone who has followed my articles over the years knows that I am a big advocate for the uniformisation of the rules throughout the world which demands a roundtable of the different governing bodies to come up with a set of rules applicable to all ages and levels, from grade school to the pros.

Christmas time, with its spirit of giving and sharing, is a good time to reiterate to the decision-makers the importance of such a roundtable which could also be the occasion to clean up some constant refereeing problems like the block-charge rule and what constitutes travelling, carrying, and illegal screens!

Fans certainly don't come to games hoping to see alot of whistles for these infractions and a common sense rule should be that whatever produces a more exciting, uptempo, offensive style of game is to be encouraged and some of the rule changes in the last few years have fortunately gone in this positive direction (i.e.worldwide 24 second rule, reduced flopping and less hand-checking)!

A recent article by Dennis Hans on hoopshype.com goes deeply into the evolution of the block-charge rule over the last 25 years pointing out that alot of coaches have pushed their defenders to " sacrifice their bodies " to take charges which unfortunately has led to too much flopping-which is a form of cheating, not smart basketball- and more importantly alot of dangerous contact and serious injuries to star players which is NOT good for marketing the game!

In the nineties, the NBA but also international ball became too physical and defense oriented under the influence of control-freak type coaching and decision-makers let this happen thinking that violence and contact on the court could attract some hockey, boxing and american football fans into basketball arenas.

I say, on the contrary, let's keep the specificity of basketball where you can go to well-heated arenas safely with your family to see free flowing, high flying, hot shooting, teamwork and basketball technique at its finest!

For example, a golden rule for block-charge situations would be to respect the letter of the law and oblige a defender to be set and completely immobile before the attacking player leaves the floor with the ball.

If this was truly enforced, 90 percent of these situations would produce a defensive foul for blocking (this would also eliminate the need for the NBA's no charge semi-circle and defensive 3-second rule which differ from FIBA rules) and convince defenders to look at other ways of defending like going for the blocked shots and steals which produce much more spectacular play!

Until the nineties, the game was played that way whereas trying to draw charges was much less fashionable.

Defense is for coaches and offense is for players and I say let's give the game back to the players on this one-unless we're talking about Mike D'Antoni or coaches with a similar philosophy!

Another aberration is help defenders drawing charges on a player who just passed the ball which was popular at the Euro championship and killed some spectacular plays!

A really big need, in my humble opinion, is to go back to the notion of the intentional foul which should be punished by 2 free throws and the possession of the ball except in the last two minutes of a close game where a team has to foul to stop the clock and try to make a comeback.

To hell with certain coaches " no layup and make them earn it from the line " philosophies which hurt the game.

Make the defender play the ball and clean up this roughhouse stuff where players in mid-air are targets and 80 percent of Euroleague fast breaks are illegally stopped by early intentional fouls at mid-court!

Obviously, if a foul is particularly violent or dangerous, a player should be thrown out and this would rapidly eliminate that type of negative behavior!

Spectacular high flyers like Julius Erving couldn't play today's game for fear of committing offensive fouls, or worse, of getting injured when landing! Happy holidays and let's all have a thought, or even better, a gesture for those who are less fortunate than we are!

George Eddy