well, it is not unprecedented to change the rules to preserve the game, though usually this is done to limit the ability of a dominating player or team or tactic. the point is that if someone comes along and makes the game less enjoyable or watchable, it behooves the sport to change the rules.
rules are, after all, arbitrary to begin with.
some examples include:
Leroy Edwards, they created the 3 second rule to limit him down in the post.
George Mikan, his shot blocking resulted the goal tending rule.
Wilt Chamberlain, free throw plane. it is now illegal to dunk free throws (cross the plane in the front of the free throw circle), it wasnt that way illegal originally. they also widened the foul lane and instituted offensive goal tending since he was making a farce out of games.
Kareen Abdul Jabar (Lew Alcindor) was so dominate and dunked so easily in college that the NCAA banned dunking for years.
now, basketball could have simply said "these are the rules and if other teams cannot adjust to such dominate players, it is too bad." but it would have made the game far less interesting to most fans and the sport would have suffered.
oh, one non-basketball example is in hockey, when a team on the power play scores, the penalized team's player comes out of the penalty box. wasnt always that way and originally the penalized players had to stay in the box the full penalty time.
but the montreal canadians with rocket richard et al were simply sooooo dominating that they were creaming other teams on a nightly basis when the canadians had a man advantage.
Topic: Drummond 13-36 from line last night. (Read 4775 times)