The NBA is rumored to be thinking about changing how the coach’s challenge works in the league, starting in the 2023-23 NBA season (h/t Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report).

“Per several sources, next season’s most likely rule change will enable coaches to keep their challenge if successful. The primary concern is keeping games at roughly two hours, 15 minutes. While challenges may average approximately 90 seconds, they can spike to six minutes or even longer.”

At the moment, the NBA gives each team one chance to challenge a particular call. If the challenge is successful, the team will not be able to receive an additional challenge or keep the one it used. That is also the case if the challenge is unsuccessful. Additionally, a coach has to call a timeout in order to challenge a call, with that timeout being kept by the team if the challenge is successful. The timeout doesn’t get returned if the officials uphold the original call upon review.

Moreover, not all calls can be subject to a challenge. A coach can only challenge a call if it is a personal foul charged against his team, an out-of-bounds call, or a goaltending/basket interference call. Teams can’t also challenge a non-call, though, that could be something the NBA can look at down the road.

Challenging a call can kill the momentum of the game, which is also why not everyone supports the idea of such a privilege for the teams. At the same time, everyone wants calls to be as accurate as possible, and challenges definitely help in that regard.