Jeff Van Gundy was asked how he would speed NBA games up. He came up with the idea to eliminate free throws until the last 4 minutes of games and halftime via Richard Dietsch at The Athletic (with ads):

Asked how he might speed up an NBA game given Major League Baseball’s success with its new time-saving rules, Van Gundy said he’d eliminate free throws until the final four minutes of a game. I’ll let him explain.

“So my most radical one is to eliminate free throws until the last four minutes,” Van Gundy said. “If you get fouled on a shooting foul, you just get the points. You don’t go to the line. And you don’t go to the line for technical free throws. They’re just points. Then I would eliminate halftime. I think halftime is the biggest waste of time. Or I’d reduce it to five minutes so you could go to the bathroom and come back out. This whole idea of what goes on at halftime I think is so misunderstood. It’s a lot of either praising what just happened or correcting. But you could do that in two minutes out by the bench in an elongated timeout.

“So free throws would be my first one until the last four minutes,” Van Gundy continued. “I don’t think you want to take away free throws in the last four minutes of a game. But let’s speed it up. The only person that likes free throws is a play-by-play announcer because they can wax poetically about some story. It’s the extra point of the NBA. It serves no rational, reasonable purpose.”

I love the idea of two points on a shooting foul. If Jeff Van Gundy was running the league back in 2016 Ben Simmons would’ve become unstoppable. Drawing fouls, but not having to shoot them? Talk about a recipe for success. Were sweeping the Hawks and history is re-written if that was the case.

Eliminating halftime is where you lose me. Those 15 minutes are important to hit the john and re-up on drinks or food. Plus if there’s no halftime show what happens to the greats like Red Panda and the guy who climbs the chairs at Sixers game you secretly hope bites it:

Lines already suck at Wells Fargo and those TV timeouts and in-between quarters aren’t enough. I was at the Zach Bryan concert last night and the one thing that sucks about shows and movies is there is never a good time to take a piss or get a beer. I think there is a business idea for anyone who wants to run with it called “Concert Buddy”. You hire a person to join you at concerts or movies who gets everything when you don’t want to leave your seat. Tell me this isn’t genius. There are a bunch of boyfriends and dads right now at Taylor Swift shows that could give two shits about Blank Space. They’re utilized to go get merch, drinks, and snacks. The person doesn’t even have to sit next to you. You just hit them up on the app when you need something. Once we figure out how you can go to the bathroom and not miss the show then we’d really start cooking with gas.

Honestly what basketball needs is to make the regular season more competitive. The games are already quick. Maybe put a time limit on replay reviews and challenges. The ratings in the first round of the playoffs were some of the highest in years because the majority of the matchups were competitive.