I kind of like kick around hypothetical ways to improve various a sport and, apparently, so does Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzula. However, I think he’s getting his idea from the same place.
The head coach of the reigning NBA champs joined Boston’s Zolak & Bertrand radio show and he was asked if he had any rules he’d like to add or change to the league.
Mazzulla was pretty pumped about the subject and had a pair of suggestions ready to go: add power plays and bring back fighting.
“Hey, I mean, basketball is one of the only sports that doesn’t have a power play,” he said.
“I think soccer just put in the ‘blue card’ where a guy has to go off and it’s a 10 on 9. Like we should have a power play. Because let’s say you have a technical or let’s say you get a take foul, and you get the one shot, but you’re not really rewarded for that because if you miss it, you don’t get the reward for that take foul. So there should be like a power play where on a take foul or on a technical, you have to play five on four for five seconds or three passes.”
That’s not a bad idea, and neither was Mazzula’s idea to bring a little more entertainment to the game.
“I think the biggest thing that we rob people from as an entertainment standpoint is you can’t fight anymore,” Mazzulla said. “I wish you could bring back fighting. I mean, you want to talk about robbing the league of entertainment. What’s more entertaining than when there is a little scuffle?”
Wait… fighting and power plays… that’s hockey!
If he starts suggesting that they make the court 200 feet long, put the nets on the ground, and change the playing surface from hardwood to ice, I’m going to start getting suspicious that Mazzulla is involved in the wrong sport.
I’ve never been one of those “Hockey is better than basketball” hockey guys. They’re two totally different things.
However, never have I felt more confident in liking hockey, because you’ll never hear anyone who enjoys hockey say that they should do anything like they do in the NBA.
But hey, these aren’t bad ideas at all, so maybe Mazulla — who seems like a real hockey guy to me — can get some momentum behind these ideas.
