Not everyone is against Hack-a-Shaq - namely those who coach youth basketball.
While appearing Sunday evening on SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio, NBA commissioner Adam Silver revealed his struggle with the intentional fouling rule that sees a team in the bonus intentionally fouling a poor free-throw shooter to send him to the charity stripe for his team.
"This is one where I really am torn," Silver said. "I don't like it. Aesthetically, it's not good, I think, for a fan to watch it - even though I find the strategy fascinating."
Silver said that while there is a ton of push from people in the league to change it, youth coaches do not want him to change the rule because they want kids to learn free-throw shooting.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't make the change but I think we gotta be really careful on how we go about doing it. And I get a ton of emails from people involved in youth basketball saying, 'Please don't make the change.'"
Silver stressed that he will need to examine the data to see whether Hack-a-Shaq is making fans tune out of the game.
"When we looked at the data, it's not so clear that people are turning the channel. In some cases, people are fascinated by the strategy," Silver explained. "I'm not saying that to be the final answer, but just looking at it as an entertainment matter, we should make sure we look at the data to see if people truly are tuning out because of a Hack-a-Shaq strategy."
It seems as though Silver is still as on the fence, as he once claimed to be, about changing the rules.
