No-Zone rule separates pros from the college boys

Sporting News, The, April 16, 2001 by Dave D'Alessandro

First, an admission: I never cared much for the college game. The rules are archaic; that one-and-one business is as tedious as Trent Lott, and the classless, look-at-me style of the referees--who are routinely awful--makes me wonder what the real show is.

Moreover, I never could understand why anyone would want to watch amateurs do what professionals do light years better, other than the occasional amateur who is good enough to merit a slightly used Lexus from Benny the Booster.

It's fine if you disagree. That's what I'm here for.

It is with no small amount of discomfort that this elitist attitude is revealed. And it causes no small amount of consternation that David Stem wants his game to resemble that other sport, the one with 25 seconds of probing, 20 passes around the perimeter, and all of it leading to a 20-foot jump shot.

You've heard all about the board headed up by Phoenix owner Jerry Colangelo, commissioned by Stem to "improve" the pro game. The 12-member board included Bob Lanier, Wayne Embry, Alonzo Mourning and Theo Ratliff. So from the start, it seems Stem wanted as much input as he could get from, uh, centers.

The board also consisted of legendary coaches such as Jack Ramsay and Dick Motta, and former G.M.s such as Colangelo, Stu Jackson, Jerry West and Rod Thom. One thing these men have in common is they are all worthy, intelligent people whose love of the game is irrefutable. The other thing they have in common is that most haven't broken down a game film in 15 years.

There's not a single active coach or anyone who ever has played point guard on this committee.

Do you like the way Sacramento plays? They never consulted Rick Adelman.

Do you like the flair some players bring to the game? They didn't invite Jason Kidd or Ray Allen.

So this is what this board came up with: permissible zones, a three-second violation for defenders, a shorter time-line violation and, the only good one, the elimination of touch fouls. (The proposal to allow goaltending once the ball hits the rim was dropped.) When these changes are sent to the Board of Governors next week, it will be an all-or-nothing proposition: Vote for the entire package or none of it.

If it passes--and the votes seem to be there--the NBA goes collegiate for 2001-02.

"This is going to a different place .with the game," Stem explains. "Bold is not risk-free, but it's a way to assure the fans that we're trying to improve the basketball."

Implode is more like it.

Sure the boss is under a lot of pressure these days.

Revenues are down, interest has waned, ratings are nose-diving, owners are scared, markets are bailing out for the first time in a generation, and me players don't always behave. Meanwhile, the NBA and its TV partners fundamentally have failed to show Joe Fan that parts of the game are truly great. But you don't change that by destroying some of the best things.

Think about it: Right now, the young players' talent is comparable to that of any other era in history--on par with the West-Robertson-Baylor generation of the early 1960s and the Jordan-Olajuwon-Malone group of the mid-1980s. It is entirely possible that we'll talk about Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett generations from now, granting them the same status we bestow on those of previous generations.

Turn this into a zone league, and you take away what each of these players does best--score in isolation. Sure, no one likes a regular diet of that, even though the Wests and Robertsons got more than 20 per game and rode it all the way into the Hall of Fame. But you don't legalize zones for that reason because that removes virtually everything else as well.

Post play? Kaput. There won't be any scoring in the paint whatsoever.

Pick-and-roll? Sayonara. The only screen-rolls will be 30 feet from the basket. The zone will obliterate the three most traditional ways of scoring. The only thing that will improve is defensive execution because of bigger and quicker bodies than the college game has. The pro offense will be reduced to 15 passes and a 23-foot jumper. And since most guys who shoot jumpers hit them about 40 or 42 percent of the time, it would be nice if someone explained how this might translate into a more exciting game.

You say that's an incentive to push it? Won't happen. Most coaches won't relinquish the obsessive control they have on offenses now, and the last thing they want is a quick jumper in transition.

It would be nice, however, if someone asked today's coaches what they think would make half-court offenses more attractive. These are the guys, after all, who find new and sophisticated ways to beat the system year after year because that's how they make their living. The result has been less creativity, more clearouts and dwindling scoring totals. But it doesn't have to be that way.

We've been through this before. The league has some serious issues about time and space--too much time to enter the ball or

clear out a side, too much space (roughly one-third of the frontcourt) no longer used. The illegal defense guidelines have caused much of this because coaches spend every waking hour thinking of ways to exploit them, and it is time for the X-and-O commissioner to ask them how they would change the system to give the offense the inherent advantage. Only they know how to build the better mousetrap.