PBA mulls tweaking rules

MANILA, Philippines — The PBA may tweak its rules to conform to more FIBA standards starting the next conference and plans to conduct consultative seminars with team coaches during the two-week break before the Governors’ Cup begins on July 10.

With three FIBA World Cup Asia qualifying windows and the Asian Games coming up this year, the move is aimed to align more PBA rules with international guidelines. But certain unique nuances of the PBA game will remain, in particular 12-minute quarters, six personal fouls to disqualification, five team fouls to penalty and the four-point shot. A FIBA rule that was adopted by the PBA two years ago was no player timeouts on the floor.

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial said a tweak under consideration is the use of the possession arrow to eliminate jumpballs in the course of a game. Adopting the possession arrow will speed things up, he noted, as it will eliminate jumpballs that require resets. Marcial said with the PBA’s 12-minute quarters, limits on personal fouls leading to disqualification and team fouls leading to penalty situations will stay.

Another tweak may be in interpreting contact off picks. “Makapal ang tawagan sa FIBA when it comes to screens, unlike sa atin na medyo manipis,” said a basketball official. The idea is to familiarize PBA players with how referees interpret the allowance of contact off picks.

It’s not certain what other FIBA rules will be considered. For example, FIBA does not recognize flagrant fouls penalty one or two with mandatory sit-outs only unsportsmanlike and disqualifying fouls. A transition foul in the PBA is an unsportsmanlike foul in FIBA with two free throws and possession. Another difference is the coaching challenge which in FIBA, is only one per team each game, regardless if successful or unsuccessful.