Saturday, October 3, 2009

NBA Institutes New Replay Policy


The NBA is making replays more frequent in games. The old rule was that replays could be used to review last second shots, flagrant fouls, and fights- to decide who to eject. In addition, now refs will be reviewing shot clock violations, and in the last two minutes of a fourth quarter or an overtime they will be reviewing out of bounds calls.

This was a great idea from the NBA because often times a bad call decides a game. With the new replay guidelines that will not be nearly as prevalent. My only concern is that the replays will slow down the flow of the game. The seemingly endless timeouts are already annoying but now the last two minutes could take half an hour.

The new replay system should be put through trial in the preseason to decide whether or not to bring it to the big show. The NBA should have a deadline to decide whether to keep it or not. January 18th is the day that most teams are hitting the halfway point in the season. That seems to be a perfect time to decide whether it's a good idea or not. My prediction is that the new system is here to stay. When the NBA changed to that horrendous basketball at the beginning of the 07-08 season, it took pretty much the entire league complaining to get rid of it. The NBA only admits they're wrong when they absolutely have to. According to them there was no big referee scandal despite a conviction of one of their refs. The new system is here to stay.