7 NBA Players Who FORCED Rule Changes

Don gives to Casey Jones and into Siegfried for a hook shot. Pretty. The big guys sometimes push each other a little bit. Celtics leading by one. Felix, Baylor. This used to be the NBA. I'm not kidding. In fact, this last clip you just saw was filmed all the way back in 1962 when it was actually the NBA Finals, Game 7 to be exact, between the Lakers and the Celtics. Fast forward to today, and not only does the game look completely different, it is different. I mean, players are shooting from half-court, players are getting together and forming quote-unquote super teams, and some players are even shooting 27 free-throw attempts in a single game. Sheesh, guys. It's crazy how players are so good that the game actually changed because of them. It's literally like they created a glitch in the Matrix. During the 90s and the early 2000s, jacking of threes was probably one of the quickest ways to get benched. I mean, only the best snipers were given the green light to take these shots. But, uh, Steph Curry changed it all. He single-handedly destroyed the old beliefs by revolutionizing the game from beyond the arc with his efficiency and unreal accuracy. If you don't believe me, just take a look. From 2008 to 2012, for a span of five years, the number of three-point attempts didn't increase at all. It was stuck at about 18, until 2013, that is. And, uh, it just so happened that 2013 was the season where Steph Curry's ankles were healed. And, it was also when Monte Ellis was traded away, so Steph Curry got the keys to Golden State. At this point in time, the baby-faced assassin said to himself, Oh, yeah, baby. And, uh, following his soliloquy, Steph's three-point attempts increased from 4.7 a game to 7.7 a game the following year, to about 12 a game where it's at now. And, look, the rest of the NBA followed his lead. The NBA as a whole went from shooting about 18 three-point attempts per game in 2012, to 20 per game in 2013, to 35.2 per game in 2022. It practically doubled. I mean, how insane is that? Now, some may say that this is just a coincidence, that Steph was just surfing amidst this wave of a three-point revolution. But, the fact of the matter is, it was the other way around, because Steph was the actual wave itself that started this whole three-point shebang, and everyone had no choice but to adapt or get left behind. As a result of this three-point revolution, which was spearheaded by Curry, offensive and defensive philosophies had to change, and as a result, basketball was changed forever. Anyway, guys, aside from the three-point revolution, another change happened pretty recently. Do y'all remember how, just a short while ago, there were discussions, actual discussions, of whether the center position or the role of the big man was now dead in the NBA? Yes, there were actually conversations going on in the NBA until these guys emerged. Giannis, Embiid, and the Joker. Unicorns like these three have also changed the NBA in ways we would never have expected. Before them, pretty much every center, not named Dirk, who ever played in the NBA, was stuck in their natural spots on the floor, aka the paint. But these three seven-feet, well-rounded behemoths have completely pushed the boundaries of positionless basketball to a whole nother level, and they've redefined what it means to be a center in the modern NBA. I mean, they can shoot, pass, and dribble like guards, as well as dominate inside the paint, just like the traditional big men of the good old days. Because of the trend that these unicorns have established, teams are now actively looking for versatile and skilled bigs to be part of the roster. I mean, just take a look at the latest draft in 2022. The top three prospects were basically unicorns, and in next year's draft, the projected number one pick is going to be yet another unicorn named Victor Wambayama. The combination of Embiid, Giannis, and Jokic have been shaking up the NBA for the last few years, and they've also changed it completely. Anyway, speaking of shaking up the league, LeBron James once shook the league to its core when he said on national television, In this fall, man, it's very tough. In this fall, I'm gonna take my talents to South Beach. Truth be told, before that event took place, players were expected to let the front office decide what to do with their contracts, which team they were gonna go to next, and a lot of other stuff. But that one act changed the landscape of NBA free agency forever. Players became more empowered, they started to control their own destiny, and because of that decision, the best team in NBA history was formed, which, funny enough, blocked LeBron's road to another championship at the time. Anyway guys, here's another player that changed the game from both inside and outside the court. Derrick Rose was a special talent during his pre-injury days, so much so that he was crowned as the league's youngest MVP in only his third year, when he was just 22. After his MVP season, the NBA went into a lockout to discuss and renegotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, and in the new CBA, teams and owners decided that young players who proved to be elite talents right from the get-go, such as D. Rose, should be paid more compared to their peers, and thus, the Derrick rule was put into effect in the CBA Agreement of 2011. The rule simply stated that teams were allowed to offer certain players who's eligible for rookie extension up to 30% of the salary cap, if he had been voted as an All-Star starter twice, made an All-NBA team twice, or won the league MVP. Prior to the 2011 CBA, the number was only set at 25%, but because D. Rose was so good at such an early age, they gave incoming rookies some extra motivation to perform at high levels with that 5% bump in their pay grade. Luka Doncic really needs to be calling D. Rose and thanking him, because he's actually the first player ever to ever get awarded with this rule, after earning All-NBA honors in his second and third season. Anyway, Prime D. Rose on the court was indeed a handful to deal with because of his explosiveness and athleticism, and similar to Rose, Shaquille O'Neal's arrival onto the NBA scene has also changed how the game was played because of his sheer size and strength. I mean, just 41 games into his rookie season, Shaq gave the league a heads-up on what's coming to them when he did this. And then two months later. Ripping down rims and breaking backboards was not only bad business for the NBA, but it also spelled disaster for players on the court. Because of Shaq's crazy obsession with shattering innocent hoops, the NBA made their backboards Shaq-proof by reinforcing them with high-quality materials to prevent this kind of unwarranted mess from ever happening again. This wasn't the last time the NBA had to change something because of Shaq, however, because some years later, Shaq continued his tour de force, but instead of breaking rims, Shaq began to punish human flesh in the paint pretty bad. Teams were finding it literally impossible to contain him because of the illegal defense rule, which pretty much meant that everybody had to play man-to-man defense and that zone defenses were illegal. With this taken into consideration, teams around the league convened and came up with a solution, which was scrapping the illegal defense rule and allowing zone defense so that teams can double-team Shaq whenever they wanted to. But as it would turn out, the rule change didn't have that much of an impact as Shaq continued to dominate and he actually ended up completing his three-peat the very same year the rule change was put into effect. Anyway, before Shaq terrorized the league, Wilt Chamberlain was the Shaq of his time and he too forced the NBA to change a ton of rules. Wilt Chamberlain entered the NBA in 1959 and immediately made his presence felt. The man known as the Big Dipper was simply an unstoppable force. Standing 7'1", no mortal man could match the physique of Chamberlain as he could just softly lay the ball in the hoop with little to no resistance at all because he was just too dang big. From 1959 to 1966, Wilt never averaged below 33 points per outing and he also never had fewer than 22 boards a ball game. Anyway guys, have you ever wondered why players have to remain behind the foul line when taking free throws? Well, according to accounts guys, Wilt Chamberlain was so freakishly athletic that without even a running start he was able to jump from the free throw line and dunk the ball. I know that sounds absolutely absurd and I'm not sure if I even believe it myself, but that's literally why players today cannot cross the free throw line even if their feet are not touching the ground until the ball hits the rim or passes through the basket. Sheesh guys, but anyway, since we talked about free throws, remember when James Harden was so, so, so good at getting to the foul line that NBA executives quite frankly literally got sick and tired of it to the point where they changed their rules? I mean, this man once shot 27 free throw attempts in a single game and he actually led the league in free throw attempts for six consecutive seasons. Anyway, Harden was notoriously known for initiating contact by placing his arm underneath his defenders arm and swinging it in a shooting motion to make it look like his defender hacked him or was trying to pin him down. Well, the NBA eventually had enough and imposed a rule change that disallowed players from relying on non-basketball moves in hopes of drawing foul calls. For James Harden though, nothing could stop him from getting to his precious line. He knew that this was only a small bump on the road and that was all this meant, was that he had to think outside of the box. This past season in 2022, when it came to free throw attempts, James Harden was still third in the league.