The NBA has taken a turn down a dark road in recent years with overuse of the hack-a-player strategy, and commissioner Adam Silver has had enough of it.
The hack-a-player strategy has seen a dramatic increase in the NBA in recent years, and commissioner Adam Silver has seen enough of it. It makes games unwatchable, it turns fans off and the league’s broadcasting partners don’t like it.
It’s a successful strategy on its face, forcing poor free throw shooters to go to the free throw line instead of allowing that player’s team to run their offense in a normal flow. It’s used relentlessly on players like DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers and Andre Drummond of the Detroit Pistons, and understandably so.
More from PistonPowered
- Which Detroit Pistons could save Team USA in the Olympics?
- Detroit Pistons could have major roster churn after 2023-24 season
- The best Detroit Pistons to wear each uniform number
- Full Detroit Pistons NBA 2K24 ratings
- Detroit Pistons: Who will sign the remaining NBA free agents?
Jordan is one of the worst free throw shooters the NBA has ever seen at 43 percent, and Drummond is statistically the worst in league history at 35.5 percent.
The true success rates of the hack-a strategy are up for debate. Usually the team getting hacked has a lead and is the better team and as such tends to win anyway, skewing results.
In addition, this strategy removes transition offense from the equation. The most effective form of offense other than an open corner three is fast-break offense, and defenses can easily set up to take the transition away. In essence, both offenses are bogged down, and games where this strategy is in play become unwatchable quagmires.
Adam Silver is taking a stand against this strategy. While a year ago he was ambivalent about it, there has been a two-and-a-half times increase this season, and a 16-fold increase in hack fouls in the past five years.
According to Silver:
"“Not only is that something that is bad for our network partners, but for all the fan research we have shows that the fans hate it. There may be a compromise in there where we can cut it down significantly.”"
According to the above piece by Brian Windhorst of ESPN, there are possible adjustments the league can make to the rule book to prevent these fouls.
"One option is to make an intentional foul penalty one shot plus the ball — as it is currently in the final two minutes of games."
Some people believe that this change will be bad for the league, and that changing rules to benefit two or three players is a preposterous overadjustment. On the other hand, it doesn’t effectively accomplish its goal, and it makes stretches of games unpleasant to watch.
As a Pistons’ fan, I wish Andre Drummond would just get better at free throw shooting so this could be a non-issue, but as an unbiased NBA fan I agree that this is a rule that should be changed and that hacking should be removed from the game.