After a champion is crowned, the NBA often revisits its rules or offers new ones to improve their product while pleasing front offices, fans and players. A new wrinkle that was added a few years back was the ability to challenge a call made by a referee. While it was a great addition, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James believes there’s a need to tinker with that rule.
After last season, commissioner Adam Silver built on the NBA’s challenge rule by providing a second challenge to teams that get their first challenge correct. But, should a team challenge once again and get it right a second time, no challenge is given back and they are out of a timeout.
That’s something that affected the Lakers in Game 5 versus the Denver Nuggets when former head coach Darvin Ham used his two challenges to overturn two bad calls made by referees. It ultimately cost them when Jamal Murray made a go-ahead shot with 3.6 seconds left and L.A. had no timeouts to advance the ball.
This became the case in the Western Conference Finals Game 1 between the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, which prompted James to take to social media to share his thoughts on being penalized for successful challenges:
Have to change that challenge rule! No way you have 2 successful challenges and can’t anymore for the rest of the game! Makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE
— LeBron James (@KingJames) May 23, 2024
Dallas became a recipient of this awkward loophole of challenging plays as head coach Jason Kidd was successful on both challenges. They came before the fourth quarter though, which meant that Kidd could not challenge any more plays in the final period.
With Game 1 going down to the wire, thankfully this did not come back to haunt them as the Mavericks won and finished the game with one timeout remaining.
It would make a ton of sense for Silver and company to revisit this rule and make corrections to it so teams retain their challenges and timeouts if it is successful.
James’ tweet garnered a ton of traction with 30,000-plus likes, which could spearhead this conversation and help further improve maintaining a fundamentally sound rule structure around the NBA.
LeBron James proud of how Bronny has navigated NBA Draft process
After an early exit from the playoffs, LeBron James can rest up before playing for Team USA in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Another caveat is he can see his oldest son Bronny go through his draft process. While there is a lot of pressure surrounding Bronny with a ton of expectations placed on him, LeBron is proud of how his son is navigating the process.
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