During the fourth quarter in Memphis on Sunday, Grizzlies guard Ja Morant laid on the court in agony before heading directly to the locker room with a hand injury that ended his day, helping the Los Angeles Lakers turn a close game into a comfortable road win.
Not long after, a similar scene played out in Milwaukee, where Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo laid on the court grabbing at his back in pain before trying to play through a lower back contusion suffered in the first quarter only to be ruled out the remainder of the evening. Without Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee too fell at home in Game 1 of the first-round series.
The common denominator, besides two of the NBA's most exciting players suffering injuries during the opening weekend of the playoffs: The types of plays on which they were injured. Both Morant and Antetokounmpo fell hard from a high distance while defenders attempted to take charging fouls against them -- successfully for Anthony Davis on Morant, while Kevin Love was called for a blocking foul sending Antetokounmpo to the free throw line.
With the importance of having stars available growing as they miss more time than ever before, it's worth wondering whether the current charge rule does enough to protect players from dangerous falls -- and how we might improve it.
The good news is both Antetokounmpo and Morant, despite each being ruled out for Game 2 of their respective series, avoided serious injury and have a chance to return in the first round. The next star to take a similar fall might not be as lucky.
That's why the NBA would be wise to consider changes to the rule.
Banning secondary charges
The most extreme possibility would be prohibiting any help defender from taking a charge. That idea is something Dallas Mavericks governor Mark Cuban proposed on his personal blog in 2004.
Acknowledging that the Mavericks were good at taking charges and that players' willingness to accept physical pain for team defense was admirable, Cuban argued that the rule was "horrible" for the NBA.
"Not only do you put both players involved at risk for injury," Cuban wrote, "but it takes away some of the most exciting and watchable plays in basketball. Rather than going at the rim looking to make a spectacular, athletic play, guys are looking at the floor to see if someone is going to be there to undercut them.
"Rather than a tomahawk jam that gets the crowd in a frenzy, we get 2 guys laying on the floor taking an inventory of bodyparts (sic) to make sure they are ok, or we get a guy going to the rim trying to stop or avoid a guy who just stepped in the lane, resulting in an ugly shot or pass. How in the world does that help the NBA or make the game better for fans? It doesn't."
It's worth noting that this proposal wouldn't negate charges taken by the primary on-ball defender, preventing the kind of situations where a powerful player like Antetokounmpo -- who's been called for an NBA-high 233 charges over the past 10 seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Info -- simply knocks down players on his way to the rim. Additionally, even if players could bowl over secondary defenders without being called for a travel, NBA rules prohibit "non-basketball contact" created by ball handlers outside the other block/charge parameters.
Still, such a change feels too beneficial for offenses at a time where they are already more efficient than ever before. When Cuban proposed banning secondary charges in 2004, offenses were at a full-season nadir. The league average offensive rating was 101.4 points per 100 possessions in 2003-04. This season, it was 114.1.
Besides, a simpler tweak would eliminate the most dangerous midair collisions.
Expanding the no-charge restricted area
To the NBA's credit, there is already a rule designed to prevent the kind of plays where Antetokounmpo and Morant were injured. It's the "no-charge" restricted area around the basket, which has been painted on courts since being expanded to its current size (a four-foot radius) all the way back in 1997-98, two years before Morant was born.
The NBA pioneered the no-charge circle, which is now utilized in NCAA and FIBA basketball as well. However, the game has changed dramatically in the 26 years since it was implemented. Back then, offenses operated in a much smaller area. Just 16% of all shot attempts were 3-pointers in 1997-98, compared to 39% this season.
With deep 3s becoming more common, the average distance of shots outside the paint continues to grow. In 1997-98, these jumpers were taken on average from 18.4 feet according to ESPN Stats & Info (not counting heaves). This season, the average shot outside the paint came from 22.8 feet, more than four feet longer.
The improved spacing creates more ground for help defenders to cover, meaning they're more likely to be actively moving into legal guarding position around the basket just as ball handlers are taking off from outside the restricted area.
By rule, such late arrivals are prohibited. A defender trying to take a charge "is not permitted to move into the path of an offensive player once he has started his upward motion to attempt a field goal or pass." Presumably, that's why Love -- whose feet were outside the restricted area -- was called for a blocking foul on the play where Antetokounmpo was injured.
In practice, however, it's difficult for a single referee to monitor both where the defender is positioned and when the offensive player has begun his upward motion at the same time. As a result, whether the defender is in the restricted area often becomes the most important criteria distinguishing a block and a charge. That's why Cuban has adjusted to advocate increasing the size of the restricted area radius to five feet.
Lest that be dismissed as an overreaction to Sunday's plays, it's worth noting that Cuban publicly suggested enlarging the restricted area as far back as 2006 when he wanted it "to encompass the entire painted area."
A larger restricted area would have turned Morant's charge into a blocking foul on Davis, disincentivizing him from trying to take a charge in the first place. Instead, Davis would have been encouraged to contest the shot, having blocked seven Sunday.
Morant himself showcased the benefits of contesting using verticality earlier in Game 1, when he denied 6-foot-8 Rui Hachimura in the paint forcing a traveling turnover.
Ultimately, changing the restricted area wouldn't affect many plays. On average this season, there was almost precisely one charge called per game between both teams, per ESPN Stats & Info. In a presentation on charge reform at the 2019 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Nate Duncan of the "Dunc'd On" podcast reported that 35% of charges during the early part of the 2018-19 season occurred within five feet of the basket.
Not all of those charges would be eliminated by the expanded restricted area because it's difficult to ascertain the exact location and the restricted area doesn't come into play on drives that start close to the basket. That said, if increasing the restricted area prevents even one serious injury to a star, it will prove well worth the trouble.