High-scoring games are the norm in the NBA nowadays, but that wasn't always the case in the early 2000s. Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle recalled the league's struggles to maintain viewership in the new millennium, mainly due to the so-called “scoring crisis” that made the game slow and unappealing to watch for fans.
Half-court offense and low-post play was all the rage back then. While it featured some of the most fundamental aspects of basketball, it looked rudimentary and boring, especially for new fans. The crisis got so bad that the NBA was seeking suggestions on how to make the game faster and more appealing.
Carlisle, who was still the head coach of the Detroit Pistons at the time, revealed his proposition to make scoring easier for players.
“I had the crazy idea of making the rim bigger,” he said, per Tim Cato of The Athletic. “I mean, shit, they do different things in baseball with the pitcher’s mound. Why not make a small adjustment in our game?”
NBA rims, of course, have a standard size of 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter. Carlisle argued that increasing the rim's circumference (at least by a half-inch) would boost shooting percentages by 15 percent or more.
The league, meanwhile, went on a different route starting by removing hand-checking and replacing the illegal defense rule with the defensive three seconds rule used in today's game. Removing the dreaded hand-checking allowed speedy guards more leeway to move around and also pushed teams to employ more help defense tactics. This heavily improved each team's ball movement, while the defensive three-second rule discouraged camping down low and prioritized shooting from the perimeter and past the arc.
The now Mavs head coach is grateful for the change since it exposed more fans to the true beauty of the game.
“It turned out, the adjustment (needed) was the development of skill,” he said.
Rick Carlisle's proposal, meanwhile, is definitely interesting even though it never came to fruition. But judging by how superstars like Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard shoot nowadays, it certainly feels like the rim got bigger.
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