Vintage NBA questions

[Jay R]

This is for some of the older folks who may remember the old days (the 70s anyway). Watching ESPN the last few days I noticed two things that seemed strange.

1. A 1978 game had three officials but a 1983 game had two officials. Did the NBA go to 3-Person and revert back to 2 officials for a period of time?

2. In the 1978 game, there were non-shooting fouls where they would get one free throw only. I don't remember that rule but I only starting watching basketball in the 80s.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Jay R

This is for some of the older folks who may remember the old days (the 70s anyway). Watching ESPN the last few days I noticed two things that seemed strange.

1. A 1978 game had three officials but a 1983 game had two officials. Did the NBA go to 3-Person and revert back to 2 officials for a period of time?

2. In the 1978 game, there were non-shooting fouls where they would get one free throw only. I don't remember that rule but I only starting watching basketball in the 80s.

They used three for a time right after the ABA teams were merged into the NBA, but went back to 2 until the late 1980s.

No idea on #2, but they did have 3-to-make-2 and 2-to-make-one for certain fouls.

[bigdogrunnin]

I thought they went to 3-person crews in 1983, on a permanent basis.

[Old School]

I too recall seeing games in the 70's with 3 officials.

There is a couple of situations in the NBA where a shooter will get one FT. One is on a technical foul and the other is some weird incident that I will have to look up. We actually did it in a game I was working using NBA rules and I had no idea what the hell they where doing.

[Mark Padgett]

Back in the day, an "off ball" foul was one free throw. This was why you saw Wilt Chamberlain getting fouled off ball all the time. Since Wilt started out as such a terrible FT shooter, fouling him off ball and getting the rebound when he missed the FT was almost like forcing a turnover by the defense. This is another case of a rule change being made because of a certain player's ability or inability as the game evolved (think "lane widening", etc.).