Can the NBA be saved?

I just finished a post that centered on a missed foul call at the end of the fourth game in the series between the Lakers and Spurs (I'm not sure what Reggie Miller is doing saying it was a foul but it was a good no call ... isn't that a little contradictory?). Anyway, moving on ... some may think I'm being critical of the referees. Perhaps, to some extent, I am. But, I don't think you can channel all the blame for "poor" officiating on the officials.

From my perspective, it is almost impossible to officiate NBA games correctly. Fortunately, I have a solution, so stay tuned. But, first, let me outline the problem. Traveling, flopping, illegal screens, palming, etc. are so prevalent that officials' hands are tied. If you call an illegal screen, or three-in-the-key, at one end, you almost have to call one on the other side to even things out later on. But, there are so many violations that you can't even come close to calling them all. If you called Tim Duncan for every moving screen, either he wouldn't set screens or he'd pick up a lot of "cheap" fouls.

There are two ways for the NBA to go. The first, the "status quo" approach, is for officials to go on trying to manage the madness. They will continue to call the occasional blatant travel and illegal screen. They'll ignore some flops and give good actors calls based on other ones. And, the players will continue to try to stretch the limits of what they can get away with.

Or, the league can try to get a handle on things. It will be painful at first. It will be ugly early on. But, in the end, the league will get the game of basketball back. The solution is to call every illegal screen. Additionally, officials need to call traveling. If Bruce Bowen (watch him, he does) moves both feet after catching the ball before he shoots, call it a travel - he did it late in game 3 (I think) to put the Spurs up 84-78.

Additionally, the league should think about ratifying the way fouls are dealt with. I don't like watching a parade of FT's. I can't imagine fans enjoy games with 60-80 FT's between the teams. Additionally, a foul call should penalize the team that commits the foul. So, a system should be implemented that penalizes the offending team enough that they choose not to foul so frequently. Instead of 2 FT's for a regular shooting foul and 3 for a foul on a 3-pointer, the shooter could get 3 for a normal FG and 4 if they are behind the line. Similarly, if they make the shot, instead of one additional FT, they would be given two. And, the officials should call more intentional fouls for fouls committed that don't include reasonable plays on the ball. Hopefully, the additional FT's would remove unintentional intentional fouls from the game. But, in the event that they don't - you might still foul Shaq if he's going up for a lay-up - an intentional foul would still warrant two shots and the ball out-of-bounds.

Don't worry, I still have a couple more modifications. If you penalize players enough for fouls, you don't need disqualifications because of 6 personal fouls. If a left tackle gets 3 false starts and 4 holding penalties in a football game, he isn't kicked out by the refs (he might be benched by his coach). Why? He's breaking the rules and committing fouls. But, he's also hurting his team with each violation. Why not apply the same principle to basketball? This will keep us from absurd situations like the Celtics v. Nets multi-OT game from a few years back when Brian Scalabrine was the best player on the floor at the end because of all the DQ's. Okay, that might be hyperbole, but I thought it was ridiculous that the best players from both teams were on the bench in a playoff game because they'd fouled out in OT.

And, finally, team fouls only apply to unintentional, non-shooting fouls. This will limit the number of FT's you get for fouls that don't take place in the offensive zone. You don't get FT's if you take a charge. Why should you get FT's if you are fouled going for a defensive rebound? That's ridiculous. However, if you don't ever get FT's on those fouls and the number of fouls doesn't matter, you can foul the crap out of people going for offensive rebounds without any problem. So, you can have 3 (seems reasonable, right?) such fouls per quarter without any penalty, but the opponent starts getting 3 FT's for every violation starting with number four. Note: ticky-tack touch fouls where no advantage is gained don't need to be called in the flow of action.

What game does the NBA want? Do they want basketball? Or, do they want street ball? It's time to choose, and I'd go for the former.