Do modern times require larger fields?

I think this is the best case. It's not just 100 giants, the forwards & guards are bigger too. I'd love to see some experimental exhibition games with 11 foot rims.

 

Believe it or not, the average height in the NBA has barely changed since then. This year the average height of 6.698 inches is actually about as short as they've been in 20 years.

Back in Wilt Chamberlain's day, 6-7 was about the average height of an NBA center. Now that's your average player.

 

Go watch a bad junior high game, you can see a rough approximation of what it would be like.

In 1970, Tennessee played an intersquad game with (IIRC) 3.5-meter rims (11'5") instead of the normal 10'0". The final score (in an era when college teams averaged about 70-75 ppg) was 40-36. The teams shot in the high 20s from the field.

Bring in 11-foot rims with the Bad Boys-style clock-milking sludge-ball which has suffocated the sport over the last 20 years, and you'd have final scores of 21-17.

 

There was actually an exhibition game with 11-foot hoops at Hec Ed Arena in Seattle last year:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003747066_elevenfoot14.html?syndication=rss

 

Also, it'd be great to see NBA players play the ball above the cylinder.

 

If it makes you feel better, Guy, I laughed.

 

Me too.

 

Let's move the wall back another 200 feet and watch the HR numbers drop.

 

Let's not start screwing with the fabric of the game any more than we have already with steroids and HGH.

Basketball courts have always been 94 feet. Football fields (in America at least) have always been 100 yards. It's been 60 feet 6 inches from the mound to home plate every year in the modern era of baseball, and 90 feet from base to base.

It's this uniformity of the game that gives us a frame of reference between eras. Yeah, there have been changes here and there, like lowering the mound in 1969 or moving the goalposts to the back of the end zone or the trend toward shorter fences in new ballparks.

But when you start talking about altering the field of play to such a large degree as 11-foot rims, you lose a tie to the history of the game, and that is a huge loss. You do that to the NBA, you might as well make it 70 feet from the mound, or make a football field uphill both ways with a valley at the 50.

 

Excellent point, except the game has gotten away from the defense-first approach and opened back up a bit in the last few years.
If you've ever been to a playground with a bent rim, or tried to shoot on an 8-foot goal, you can get an idea of what kind of adjustment you'd be looking at. Sure, it'd take the big men and high flyers out of dunk mode. But it'd also completely screw up everybody else's shot. They'd adjust, but if you do it all the way down the line from high school to pro (like you'd have to), it'd take at least several years before the game recovers.

 

I'd love to see the NBA court widened a little, these guys are so big and quick that they look crowded. More spcing would provide for more passing and better driving into the lane rather than the collapsing man-to-man you see.

RAISE THE RIM in the NBA.

 

NBA - play a few games four-on-four and see what happens

You can keep the dimensions the same, just create less traffic.

Also, move the three point line way back or get rid of it altogether. When the layup is the easiest lay to score points, you will see the fastbreak come back.



MLB - The only thing I would look at is changing the amount of foul territory. Small change though. Once the drugs have been eliminated, then the numbers will regulate themselves again. I know that is wishful thinking. It's about as wishful as a tightly wound ball spiking the HR numbers.