Basketball and the Rule of Law – Asheesh Agarwal

Basketball is the only sport that incentivizes teams to break the rules and to get caught doing so, writes Aaron Carroll .

Carroll: NBA Rule 12 , Fouls and Penalties gives teams incentives to foul and get caught.

He says teams often foul poor free-throw shooters as a defensive strategy in hopes that they can regain possession with the other team scoring less than two points.

Carroll says the rules reward such strategies, but in football, penalties punish the offending team by moving the ball closer to its goal line.

In the NBA , television ratings are down 28 percent on ESPN , while viewership has also fallen for men’s college basketball ( 21 percent ) and women's basketball ( 18-24 percent ) NBA is considering a variety of drastic changes, including shortening games from 12-minute to 10-minute quarters .

Instead, basketball could address many of its issues by embracing the rule of law and a penalty structure that disincentivizes rule breaking.

By embracing principles of the rule of law and by properly aligning penalties with incentives, the game of basketball would become better, faster, and more enjoyable, and an even truer test of skill and strategy. In this respect, the game of basketball might benefit from lessons learned in those other courts..