Zaza Pachulia got the ire of San Antonio Spurs fans everywhere when Kawhi Leonard injured his ankle after landing on the big man’s foot back in last season’s Western Conference Finals series opener. Pachulia was only assessed a regular foul then, despite replays showing probable intent on the center to hurt Leonard by sliding his foot on the Spurs forward’s landing spot.
Under new rules to be instituted by the NBA starting next season, Pachulia would’ve been assessed a flagrant foul on that specific play. According to Howard Beck of Bleacher Report, the league is going to levy a heavier penalty on players who are going to do a “Zaza” moving forward in a clear attempt to help protect offensive players from suffering serious injuries.
NBA refs cracking down on two areas this year: 1. "Reckless" closeouts (see Zaza); 2. Shooters creating contact to draw FTs (see Harden)
— Howard Beck (@HowardBeck) September 21, 2017
The Zaza rule: On a reckless closeout, refs will call foul, then use replay to determine whether the closeout constituted a flagrant foul.
— Howard Beck (@HowardBeck) September 21, 2017
In another rule modification, players will have fewer options to coax referees into blowing their whistles for shooting foul calls from defenders. As Beck points out, referees will only call shooting fouls if the shooting player did show that contact happened at the same time in which they were in the actual shooting motion. Otherwise, regular fouls will only be charged to the defender.
Among the most common tricks used by offensive players such as James Harden to draw fouls are by hooking the arms of their defenders and by jumping on them to create contact. Under these new rules, resorting to these gimmicks could lead to players being called offensive fouls.
Also, if refs determine that offensive player lunged into defender, or locked his arm to create contact, they could assess offensive foul
— Howard Beck (@HowardBeck) September 21, 2017
Like in most rule changes, it’ll take time for players to abide by them, but these should prompt a more fluid motion of the game.