NBA govs on board with rules changes

The NBA board of governors, during the league’s annual meeting during Las Vegas Summer League on Tuesday, approved a pair of rules changes that will take place starting with the upcoming season.

As expected, the NBA is giving coaches the right to challenge one call per game next season. They may challenge a personal foul charged to their team, a called out-of-bounds violation, a goaltending violation or a basket-interference violation.

The league told teams last month that the challenge will be in place on a one-year trial basis pending approval from the board of governors, which has now happened.

In the other rules change the board approved, replay can now be triggered by game officials working in the review center in Secaucus, N.J., without the involvement of the on-court refereeing crew.

The replay center will have the authority to review whether a shot was a 2-pointer or 3-pointer whether or not refs in an arena ask for such a shot to be checked, plus potential shot-clock violations.

The board, cognizant that teams are not strictly following the rules on when they can negotiate with free agents, also discussed ways to fix the process — either by changing rules, adding rules or eliminating outdated rules — and decided things will be worked on over the next several months in an effort to ensure fairness across the league.

“The one strong conviction I have is that we should not have rules that are not strictly enforced,” commissioner Adam Silver said. “And we know that’s the case right now. And whether that’s by virtue of practice, whether it’s because just the world around us has changed, whether it’s because players have power that they didn’t use to have ... let’s step back, let’s reset, let’s talk to our players’ association about what system makes sense going forward.”