The NBA G League will experiment with a single-shot free throw for foul shots that normally would have shooters taking two or three attempts to cash in on all the possible points at the line this season, ESPN’s Zach Lowe reports.
Made in an effort to improve the pace of play and game flow, G League head of basketball operations Brad Walker told Lowe that this “one foul shot for all the points” model will cut down the length of G League games by about six to eight minutes in total length, something that has the potential to cut down the time of a G League game to under two hours.
As Lowe reports, this one foul shot for all the points system will be in place until the last two minutes of regulation and overtime, when then the traditional system will kick back in.
There are concerns involved in an idea like this such as statistical data showing players are more likely to hit their second or third free-throw attempts after missing their first and how this might affect late-game strategy and comeback attempts when teams must foul to stop the clock.
The G League has been a testing ground for the NBA to try out rules in the past with the most recent being the addition of coaching challenges, which will make their NBA debut this season. That doesn’t mean every rule that gets a shot in the G League will make it up to the big league, but there’s definitely a chance.
The G League will review the results of this single-shot free throw rule at the end of the season and whether it will proceed with it, Lowe reports.
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