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Report: NBA to implement new rules forbidding non-basketball moves to draw fouls

The NBA is officially attempting to eliminate some of its most embarrassing foul calls.

According to The Athletic's Shams Charania, the NBA has decided to move forward with new rules to reduce the use of non-basketball moves to draw fouls.

NBA officials will reportedly be trained to identify and penalize some of the following non-basketball moves, per Charania:

  • launching into defender

  • abruptly veering off path

  • kicking leg at abnormal angle

  • hooks defender with an off-arm

If an offensive player is deemed to have made more than marginal contact (offensive player's contact impacts the defender's speed, quickness, balance, or rhythm), the play will be called an offensive foul. Marginal contact will remain a no-call.

The change had been previously reported to be in the works last month, though it's unclear whether the NBA Board of Governors has voted the change into the rulebook.

The news figures to be a breath of fresh air for fans sick of seeing NBA shooters bizarrely flail in mid-air with the hope of drawing a call, a practice that has become increasingly common in the modern NBA. No player is more infamous for the practice James Harden, who was predictably the butt of several jokes on Twitter after the report.

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