The NBA Challenge Rule Needs Revision This Off Season

The sports industry is always looking for ways to enhance and create better fitting rules in the competitive sports world. This can increase the competition, create more opportunity in games, and refresh the game for fans and most importantly – the players. This is exactly what the NBA (National Basketball Association) is doing by implementing the NBA in-game coach’s challenge. The idea of the recently implemented coaches challenge rule has been a controversial new addition to the NBA. As it is early, we are seeing that there are tweaks and changes that must be made to enhance this new rule.

As this season is nearing its end, it is it apparent that the NBA’s in-game challenge rule is flawed and is in need of revision this offseason?

Yes, the NBA’s in-game challenge rule needs revision this offseason. The inconsistencies have shown throughout the season by costing games in critical moments and allowing for poor officiating to slide.

In December of 2020, prior to the season start, the NBA’s board of governors voted to keep the challenge rule for team coaches. According to ESPN, in the 2019-20 season, there were 700 coach challenges, resulting in 308 overturned calls, or a rate of 44%. This rule allows for a coach to call a timeout immediately after a questionable call by the referee, challenge it, and allow for the referees to do an in-depth review of the play. This concept seems like a refreshing addition as the game continues to evolve, but the new rule has come with many flaws.

I have concluded that the new challenge rule needs revision for many reasons. When using your coaches challenge, you are only granted one per game. Meaning, if you use the challenge on a questionable call in the first quarter of a game (and even if it succeeds), you cannot use it again in the fourth quarter – where it may have become more valuable. You use it and lose it. Issue number two is if you call a timeout to challenge the play and it fails, not only do you lose your challenge for the remainder of the game, but the timeout is lost as well. This becomes a lose-lose for the challenging team. Issue number three is that if you challenge a play and it succeeds, you are still not guaranteed possession of the ball after the challenge depending on the play. Many successful challenges end up being a jump ball, where both teams have a fair chance of receiving possession. That is flawed mainly due to the challenging team using their one call for the game and still not being rewarded with the ball after a successful challenge. My fourth and final complaint about the NBA’s challenge rule is that these challenges can only be called when a play is dead. This means that even if a player stepped out of bounds and it was obvious, you cannot challenge as the play is still alive and not ruled a stop of play by the refs. There are plenty of examples that cover this final complaint quite accurately.

On Jan. 3 of 2019, the Golden State Warrior and Houston Rockets faced off in a highly anticipated and competitive game. The specific play takes place in overtime when the two teams were very close in score and the game was coming to an end, thus being a crucial no-call. Kevin Durant was saving a loose ball and clearly steps out-of-bounds, but the ref did not see it and let the play continue. The play led to a crucial and game altering score by Stephen Curry that gave the Warriors a lead in overtime.

So not only can the play not be challenged as it wasn’t ruled dead, but this also shows the poor officiating by referees. Missing a simple call like this and not being able to challenge it hurts the game in many aspects. It puts the other team (in this case, the Houston Rockets) at a disadvantage and even costs the game for teams. It affects the players that have been playing their hearts out the previous 40 minutes and sacrificing their bodies knowing that an easy out-of-bounds call was missed and has now changed the game. The fans that may have spent a lot of money for tickets to watch this game or have been tuned in for hours at home become frustrated knowing this missed call will change the outcome of the game. Despite James Harden’s heroic performance to comeback and still win this game for the Houston Rockets, the call needed to be made by the ref and plays like this should be made challengeable by the coaches.

Although it may not be a priority for the NBA Board of Governor’s to review the rule as they want to keep the game loose and free flowing, it’s important to consider this as an underlying issue to poor referee officiating and it needs to be revised. It is understandable that not every foul can be called, or every travel can be turned over. That is not the goal of this revision. The goal is to prevent games from being altered due to missed obvious calls and poor officiating by refs. The NBA challenge rule being revised to become more consistent will be useful for teams and is vital to NBA games being fairly officiated.

To better the challenge rule overall, I believe if teams challenge a play or call successfully, they would be able to keep their challenge. Revision number two would allow for coaches to challenge live play. This would be useful in preventing obvious no-calls (like stepping out of bounds, above) and no-call blatant fouls. Revision three would be, depending on the play, instead of winning a challenge and doing a jump ball, either continue the play in the game or reward the challenging team with the ball. These simple revisions would create a fairer game for NBA basketball.