Rule Change Proposals

[Texas Aggie]

Baseball has the intentional walk

I believe the baseball rule reads something like "a ball is a LEGAL pitch... (that is outside the strike zone; my paraphrase)." The key word there is LEGAL. A foul is not legal in basketball. Completely different issue. A walk is simply the result of 4 called balls. Further, a team can easily rectify a walk by either a caught stealing, pickoff, or double play. How can you rectify a play in basketball?

Football teams will often take a delay of game penalty to use more time and give their punter more space to kick.

Any penalty in football can be declined, thus the 5 yard walk off wouldn't happen. If the offense is ahead and gets a delay call, the rules state clearly that the Referee can start the clock on the snap, eliminating the ability of the offense to milk the clock in that way. Further, a 5 yard penalty isn't inherently advantageous.

Stopping the clock in basketball by committing a foul IS inherently advantageous. Other than a foul on an attempted 3 point shot, the most number of free throws the offense can get is 2. If a team can shoot 3's consistently, they can win the game by using rules infractions to their advantage. I realize this isn't anything new. Hell, I use to foul to stop the clock when I was first playing ball about 7 or so years old. My point is that the game has changed to the point where fouling is not only encouraged to stop the clock at the end of the game, but also to keep a team from shooting a three point shot to win. That is not what basketball is or should be about.