The NBA is making crucial changes as next season approaches to prevent players who are doing their best to change the game beyond how it’s usually played, according to Monty McCutchen, who oversees the league’s on-court refereeing performance.

“We want basketball to be played, not tampered with,” Monty McCutchen, NBA vice president and chief of referee development and training, said in a phone call with reporters Thursday afternoon.

The National Basketball Association was quick to point out that the revised approach is not due to rule changes, but rather to interpretation changes, intended to eliminate some of the open-ended absurdity that has become widespread in recent seasons. Players love Bring the youth From the Atlanta Hawks and James Harden From the Brooklyn Nets team, they are constantly discovering new ways to create free throws.

“NBA officials are no longer thinking about what would have happened,” McCutchen said, adding that the goal was to determine if there was “open, sudden or abnormal movement” when an attacking player starts calling him. defender.

Some examples of such plays include the shooter lunging or leaning toward the guns at an unnatural angle; the attacking player who suddenly deviates from the path (sideways or backwards) towards the defender; A shooter who moves his leg up or to the side at an abnormal angle and an attacking player who uses his arm to hook a defender.

The biggest change of the season is that the NBA will now penalize a player’s offensive foul that throws a defender into the air with false play and pushes the defender to foul with an unnatural movement.

McCutcheon was quick to point out, and he has several examples to back him up, that the NBA doesn’t want to eliminate players until they catch a defender in the air and make a mistake. If the attacking player has a defender in the air and a foul is made in a normal shooting move, it will still be a defensive foul.

“We want to have a level playing field to compete with passion and skill,” McCutchen said. “And we want to flush into the game and we want basketball to be played like basketball, not one-on-one matches in an effort to maximize efficiency.”

However, McCutchen said, there will be plenty of ways for players to get to the free-throw line. One of the moves that has not been removed from players’ arsenals is the ability to go around the screen and go straight up in a shooting motion, causing the defender to crash behind his opponent and make a foul.

What will not be allowed is for the players to do their best to jump in front of the defender and then stop, which will cause the defender to run towards them and generate friction.