Shift to Standardized Rules Gets a Bounce
 

Excerpt from today's USA Today:

As basketball's global popularity grows, so does sentiment to standardize its rules. NCAA, NBA and international officials are talking, and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) already has approved a series of shifts toward the American game in 2010, backing up its three-point line a little more than 1½ feet and going from its distinctive trapezoid to a rectangular lane.

"I think in the next decade," NBA executive Stu Jackson says, "you'll see the rules get to a point where you could argue they're standardized."

Entire article is at:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olymp...tandards_N.htm

This surprises me the most. Not sure if the change is good or bad or neither. But it was certainly distinctive of the international game.