3 FTs proposal
 

I was giving some thought to the unsatisfactory prolonging of the length of games by continually fouling near the end and came up with an idea.

In the last three minutes of the second half or any extra period, a team having control of the ball shall be awarded three free throws for any foul committed by the opponent with more than 15 seconds remaining on the shot clock if the opponent is behind in the score.


This would work nicely at the NCAA level and for any state which employs a shot clock at the HS level. Other states could use the idea, but would have to go by the game clock, and have someone note when possession was obtained.


The idea is to negate most of the value of the late fouling strategy by penalizing a team for quickly fouling (before twenty seconds runs off the clock) and undermining the goal of trading two points for three. Right now the team awarded the free throws is put at a disadvantage by not having the opportunity to score as many points as their opponent on each possession.

The team which is trailing would either have to allow 20 seconds to come off the clock each time the opponent got the ball or face a stiffer penalty.

Interesting idea. I gotta admit I like it, but getting it passed may be tough. It certainly takes away some of the coaching element in close games. I don't think that's a bad thing, but there are many people involved in the game that would. Are you sending in to the NCAA?

This is an interesting proposal. For those of us without a shot clock, this could be problematic. BUT, thinking along the same lines, since we already have the double-bonus at 10 fouls, perhaps we could add a triple-bonus at say 13 fouls. Or, perhaps, on the 13th foul and beyond the foul would be treated as a technical foul. This would allow the offensive team to put their best FTer at the line PLUS they would retain the ball. I don't like this nearly as well as some kind of 3-shot penalty. I think that this makes complete sense since the advent of the 3-point shot.

Interesting thought....

There has been a push in recent years by FIBA to get referees to call fouls in these circumstances as "unsportsmanlike" personal fouls, which results in 2 free throws and the ball back. As a result, there seemstobe far fewer games played under FIBA rules that are reduced to a free throw shooting contest.

The triple bonus has been suggested before in a manner such as you have stated. Also, it was suggested that the one-and-one be eliminated and replaced by two shots, and then when a team reaches ten fouls the penalty becomes three shots.

What hit me as a spark of insight is that the main problem goal for the team that is leading is to get the time off the clock and get the darn game over. Therefore, I came up with the idea to utilize the shot clock kind of in the reverse manner as is done for a kicking violation with the barrier at 15.

The goal is simply to discourage the team from fouling right away. Of course, once there is less than 20 seconds left in the game the trailing team may have no choice and fouling right away could still be considered the best strategy available, but at least they will suffer more for it and if they can't gain any ground on the scoreboard, then the fouling may well cease much quicker than it does now.

FWIW - FIBA did this in around 1988, as a player I was VERY happy, I often missed the front end of a 1-and-1 :)

Concur, interesting proposal.

But, I also agree that this would give an added level of complextiy to those of us already challenged at the sub-V level, with a two-man crew, without a shot clock, and with "non-professionals" at the table.

I remember (I think) the ole NBA "three for two" rule where you got three chances to make two foul shots. Of course, that was a few days ago..... ;)

I just think that the concept is worth revisiting every so often. No shot clock and some "newbies" or "homers" on the clock can make changes difficult.

I think that the very problem that we have is the 3-points-for-2-points trade off with this tactic. I don't necessarily think that we should be automatically giving a team 3-shots if they are behind. But, if a team wants to make it a FT-shooting contest, they will know that they will be giving up 3-shots after they get to 13 (I don't like 10 as this would prolong too many other games where the "tactic" was not being used, but rather just the situations in the games). This would cause the coach to "do some math" before committing the 13th, 14th foul just as they do today when they are down by 14 with 30 seconds left and no time-outs.

I'm sorry, I think we keep the Fed game moving fast enough by ignoring 3 seconds...:D

Seriously, I do think your taking away advantages allowed by the rules with this "new rule".

Team A 63 Team B 63
4th quarter 47.9 seconds on the game clock.

A1 just hit a big 3 pointer to give us a 66 - 63 score.
B1 brings the ball up under pressure and gets pick pocketed by A1 just past half court. (shot clock reset for those who have)

A1 drives for an attempted layup but is fouled from behind by B1.
(Exact same foul that happened in the 1st quarter when B was ahead by 10)
Your scenario now gives A1 3 ft's????

Your taking away the strategy of making the A team make FREE throws by forcing team B to be a 3 pointer sharpshooting team to catch up.

Baloney.

Interesting concept but I think that the last 3 minutes is too long.

Didn't the NCAA come up with some similar convoluted plan to cut down on fouling in the 80's and then ended up scrapping it during the season?

Since Nevada's main concern seems to be the clock aspect of this, why not just make it easier and adopt an NFL-type rule. Any foul by the trailing team in the last minute requires a 10 (or 15 or 20 or whatever) second runoff of the game clock.

That way, you don't have to worry about whether the game is played with a shot clock or not. The trailing team gets to stop the clock, but at the cost of losing a few seconds.

I disagree that the team in the lead is at a disadvantage here. You must figure in the probabilities of making the free throws as opposed to making a 3-point FG.

For example, suppose a team shoots 75% at the line. Then the expected value of 2 FT's would be 2 X .75 = 1.5.

If their opponent is making 33% of the 3-point FG's, then the expected value of their tries would be 3 X .33 = 1 (approximately).

This example might be a little high for HS, a little low for NCAA. But you see the point.

The fact that FT's are much easier to make than 3-point FG's means that trading a chance for 2 against a chance for 3 is often to the advantage of the team in the lead.

The probabilities in my examples are just that: examples. The team in the lead needs to make their FT's to stay ahead, and if they shoot only 25% at the end of the game they can lose. The team that's behind needs to make their 3 pointers, and if they shoot 60% they can win. But I think that overall the probabilities are well balanced as the rule stands.

Take away this argument, and what is the rationale for the rule change? To shorten games? But why shorten an exciting part of the game?

[QUOTE=Nevadaref;568235]...

In the last three minutes of the second half or any extra period, a team having control of the ball shall be awarded three free throws for any foul committed by the opponent with more than 15 seconds remaining on the shot clock if the opponent is behind in the score.

...[QUOTE]

Everytime I try to think of something to prevent strategic fouling near the end of a game, I come back to the fact that one team needs the ball and needs to limit time running off the clock. Until you eliminate those, teams are going to foul. Any situation that has the possibility of one team "coming back" to win, regardless of the penalty, they are going to foul. They won't stop until they realize the game is out of reach. At that point both teams are merely waiting for the clock to run out and aren't competing. It is not so bad when that happens in the last 30 seconds (actionless, waiting for the clock), but I think it would stink for the last 3 minutes to be actionless.

An after thought, now if you award 5 pts for shots from beyond half court, you have done two things, 1) provided a quicker method for teams to close a scoring gap, 2) mucked up a previous question of the purpose of the division line.

Nevada, how many fouls have you ever seen that fit this description in one game? I've never really seen more than 2 or 3 before it's either worked or they give up. Not much of an extra delay, really.

My thoughts exactly. This strategy is ingrained in the game--you gotta knock down your free throws late in a close game to win. If it ain't broke....

Put me in the came of not exactly seeing a problem that needs a solution.

While your numbers hold for a 2-shot FT, 1-and-1s are a different story. You have a .75 on the first shot (75% of 1 shot). But, the second shot is actually only .56 (75% of 75%). This expected value of 1.31 is significantly less than 1.5. If the numbers are actually 67% and 30% (probably closer number at the HS level), the expected numbers are: 1.11 vs. .9. (This explains why a decent number of comebacks utilizing this strategy work as it is an 1.11:.90 as opposed to 1.31:1.0 or 1.5:1.0.

At some point, perhaps a strategy of fouling and making threes should be lessened in value somewhat by making foul 13 and up 3 FTs in lieu of 2 FTs.

How about just making it an intentional foul then they get no advantage to doing this at all.

Why don't we just quit once a team is up 5 or 6 points with 2 minutes or so left?
:rolleyes:

How about giving the fouled team the option of taking the foul shots or inbounding the ball.

How long do you think it would take for the trailing team to kill someone on the leading team if they kept ticking them off by continually bypassing the free throws? Not a good idea IMO.

I like it.......

I've seen games(mostly at lower levels) where Coach K wannabe's will hack away to the biteer end, down 15 with 30 seconds to go.

I disagree. Once they realize the other team is not going to take the shots, but just continue to inbound, there's no reason to keep fouling on purpose. If they get too rough, the rules already allow calling intentionals or flagrants.

Exception, not the rule.

The "ball instead of FTs" doesn't work either; it just incentivizes the defense to take bigger and bigger risks in hopes of a steal, with no downside. And eventually the officials tired of playing 2 seconds at a time will let something go that should be called, et cetera.

The problem with the steep penalty (3 FTs at 13+, or a time runoff) is that when the penalty is steep, some officials may factor that into their judgment of what to call. I'm talking about the same logic that led to the 5-yard face mask penalty. For the grasp and release, 15 yards seemed too punitive, so it would get passed on sometimes. Then for the grasp, slight twist, release, well that's close to the same so don't call that either. The 5-yard option gives officials a way to correct it without being punitive.

The real solution is a shot clock. But for budgetary reasons, that won't be mandated by Fed for quite some time. Until then, late game fouling is a necessary evil.

That might be the case if everybody is nice, but my thinking is that you will have more instances where you have more taunting & rough play trying to goad the leading team into shooting the ft's...I agree there are provisions to deal with things like that, but I'd rather avoid them...I don't mind the end of game the way it is now, make your ft's and you usually don't have to worry about losing the lead...

What's wrong with taking bigger risks to steal the ball? If you make a play on the ball without excessive contact, it's a legitimate foul. Nothing wrong with that. The downside is that if the contact is excessive, the rules cover that already with an intentional or a flagrant. As to your "2 seconds at a time will let something go that should be called" comment - uh uh - that's not what happens with good officials.

I think the NF should try this and see how it works out. In fact, I think I'll suggest it for a rule change for our kids rec league next season.

I'm still in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" camp.

First of all, I don't know that this is necessarily a problem looking for a solution, but it is always a worthwhile discussion to have.

Secondly, yes, you could foul every two seconds, but eventually you will probably foul the player that the offensive team would like to send to the line. If the fouls become hard fouls with excessive force or without attempt to play the ball, the official can still call an intentional foul (though, I will agree that officials do hesitate to make this call because of the massive difference in penalty compared to a regular foul -- which could be the difference between 1+1 and 2+THE BALL).

I do not think that calling a foul that happens to be the 13th or 14th for a team resulting in a 3-free-throw penalty would be significantly different than calling the 10th or 11th foul resulting in 2 vs. the 7th for a 1+1 -- a 67% FTer will have an expected value of 1.0 for the 1+1 vs. a 1.34 for 2 FTs. Yes, the 13th foul has an expected value of 2.0 in this situation, but not enough to prevent a call, in my opinion.

This difference is still only about half of the difference of a 1+1 (1.0 for a 67% shooter) vs. an intentional foul which would have 2 shots (1.34 for a 67% shooter) plus another 1.2 for the extra possession yielding 1.0 vs. 2.54. This math is one reason why referees are very reluctant to call all-but-the-most-obvious intentional fouls near the end of a game.

As for the answer being the shot clock, doesn't this still happen in college? Don't they have a shot clock, already?

I think the shot clock minimizes the late-game fouling to an acceptable level. You won't see an "on-purpose" foul with 2 minutes or even 1:30 left in a college game, but you will in an HS game.

And May I Use A Calculator ???
 

I didn't know that there was going to be math on the Forum today. Can I read this post tomorrow, please?

Have a look at my previous post - this is what FIBA does :D

And this was an option under FIBA rules until 1988 - when in the penalty situation (which was one-and-one) you had the option to shoot the free throws or take the ball a the halfway line. It just resulted in harder fouls being committed on players out of frustration.