Report: Group of NBA execs lobbying hard against Hack-a-Shaq reform

The NBA will have the opportunity this offseason to institute some rule tweaks to help eradicate the polarizing Hack-a-Player strategy from games, but there is a rising tide of opposition to such reform among some of the league's top executives.

According to ESPN's Zach Lowe, there is a "vocal group of team executives and owners," - which includes "several players-turned-executives (plus owners Dan Gilbert and Mark Cuban)" - that would rather the rules remain as they are.

Under the current rules, teams in the penalty can employ the strategy - still commonly called "Hack-a-Shaq" because it rose to prominence as a tactic against Shaquille O'Neal - to intentionally foul a poor free-throw shooter, whether he has the ball or not, and put him on the line. The concerns about it are as much about as aesthetics as practicality; Hack-a-Shaq bogs games down, drags them out, and saps them of any discernible flow.

Two weeks ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said it was likely to be eliminated this summer. Cuban responded by saying Silver was "dead wrong," and that the solution to pace-of-play issues is not "rewarding somebody for not being able to shoot a free throw like a 10-year-old."

Lowe, citing data from ESPN's Kevin Pelton, notes that centers DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, and Andre Drummond accounted for 262 of the 380 intentional off-ball fouls during the regular season, and reports that opponents of reform are asking why the rules should be changed simply to accommodate three players.

Lowe also notes that the competing stances taken by various league executives are partly motivated by self-interest:

Teams with blaring hack targets prefer reform. Teams stocked with good free shooters like the hack arrow in their quiver, especially if they might encounter Jordan, Howard, or Drummond in the playoffs.

The most likely outcome, it seems, is some sort of compromise. These, according to Lowe, are a few of the reform proposals that have gained traction:

• Allow the team being hacked to pick its own free-throw shooter.
• Allow the team being hacked to choose between sending the fouled player to the line, or simply taking the ball out of bounds with a fresh shot clock.
• Apply the rules already in place for the last two minutes - when an intentional off-ball foul gives the opposing team one free throw plus possession - to the rest of the game.
• Keep the final-two-minute rules to the final two minutes, with the caveat that any intentional off-ball foul committed in the backcourt, at any time, would draw the same one-shot-and-the-ball penalty. Once the foul target is past midcourt, those additional punitive measures disappear.
• Extend said proposed protected zone to the opposing team's 3-point line.
• Institute a super bonus, whereby any opponent hacked after the fouling team has committed a certain number of team fouls, could get three opportunities to make two free throws.

The league's general managers balked when they had an opportunity to get the ball rolling a year ago, failing to come to a consensus on a potential rule change at their annual meeting.