5 NBA Players that ignited a Rule Change(s)
The NBA has evolved a lot over the years. There has been a progression through several eras, from the Big centered era to a guard centered era.
Even the Big Men in today's NBA are expected to be versatile and have a decent outside jumper. The NBA is constantly evolving.
Having said that, here are some of the NBA players that lead to a change in the NBA rulebooks.
#1 Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt the Stilt as they called him is said to be the most dominant player the NBA has ever seen. They say that he even scored a hundred, yes you heard that right! One hundred points in an NBA game against the New York Knicks in the 1962 NBA Season.
This guy was a whopping 7-foot 1-inch center with a 7-foot 7-inch wingspan. Teams struggled to guard him and he dominated every team. The Wilt Chamberlain-Bill Russell rivalry is said to be among the best rivalries in NBA history.
Now the only thing Wilt couldn't do was shoot free throws. He even tried Rick Barry's famous underhand free throws sometimes. But nothing worked. Now here's how he created an advantage for himself.
He would throw the ball off the backboard and later dunk it over everybody on his last free throw. This was not fair at all in the eyes of the NBA. Consequently, this led to the first NBA rule change.
Rule Change 1: The player who is shooting the free throw cannot go forward in front of the free throw line during the course of the free throw.
Rule Change 2: The free throw shot by the player has to touch the rim for it to be a valid free throw.
Wilt was also known to dunk the ball over defenders when players who took the inbound throw would fight the ball over the backboard for him to finish his dunk. This was the preferred inbound play for every team he was in until the NBA stepped to make a rule change –
Rule Change 3: The player taking the inbound throw cannot throw the ball over the backboard in an inbound play.
Yes! This man ignited three changes in the NBA Rule Book. No wonder they called him the Most Dominant Player the NBA has ever seen.