The NBA’s competition committee met in Las Vegas on Monday, but made no decisions regarding making any changes to two of the league’s most talked-about issues.
Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com:The NBA’s competition committee met Monday in Las Vegas to review several potential rule changes, including playoff seeding, “Hack-a-Shaq,” the free-agency moratorium period and the replay review center.
Sources at the meeting said no concrete decisions were made in the room, but a full summary of the discussion will be presented to the NBA’s Board of Governors, which is scheduled to meet on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
The conversation surrounding playoff seedings addressed whether division winners should be given an advantage in tie-breaker scenarios and a top-four conference seeding despite record.
The occasionally-effective but always-ugly strategy to intentionally foul poor free throw shooters got national exposure during the playoffs in multiple rounds, but was most egregious during a contest where the Rockets were sent to the free throw line a ridiculous 64 times.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said he’s on the fence about whether or not to eliminate this as an option, and evidently the committee members saw it the same way.
The league’s moratorium on free agent signings was also discussed, in light of a loophole that DeAndre Jordan exposed when he backed out of a verbal commitment to the Mavericks and chose to remain with the Clippers instead. A day-long circus unfolded that was hilarious to watch in real time, but was ultimately a bad look for the league and this particular side of the business.
