At the beginning of the month, the NBA Competitiveness Committee recommended 4 rule changes for the 1997-98 NBA season. The NBA Board of Governors accepted 3 of the changes: expanding the 3-point line, reducing the use of forearm checking, and eliminating timeouts while airborne or out of bounds.
They did not accept the change in the illegal defense rule, feeling that it would negate the spacing (and hopefully offensive output increase) attained in moving back the 3-point line.
The one additional rule that wasn't previously reported was expanding the no-charge area underneath the basket to a uniform 4-1/2 feet around the basket. It'll be interesting to see how consistently this rule is enforced.
June
