The Deep 3 Podcast - These NBA Rules Need To Be Changed | TD3 Clips

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Every NBA rule we want changed! #nbaCheck out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLWListen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthreeFollow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacgMo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

B. Souls is going to show us an NBA rule. We have to decide if we keep it, change it, or cut it. So all the rules that define the NBA as of today, the things that have shaped the last decade, we can pick what we would change or what we get rid of altogether. Okay. Okay. Okay. First rule, the 65 game rule.

My instinct is the cut. I think we should let the voters decide on their own. But I can be swayed to say change and keep it in some regard, but I'm damn sure I'm not keeping it how it is now. Yeah, it can't stay as is. If I was to change it, I would drop it instead of like 65, maybe like somewhere in closer to the middle of the pack, maybe like 52 or something like that.

You know? I would say that's fair. Maybe 55 and make it only apply to first team all NBA. But if you play below that, you still make 13th mile NBA. That would be fair to me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'd change it.

I think 65 is a bit much. I would say 60. Like, let's say 58 to 60. I don't want it to apply to everything It's the best player in the world Plays 58 games I'm putting them 13 Mal NBA And I feel like that should be allowed

I'll say you can't win MVP You can't be first team You can't win DPOI that's fine to me But you can't make third team all NBA For Nicole Yoki should play 59 games It's weird What are you doing? What I'm saying 58 games

All right change Yeah Okay next One and done eligibility I'm getting out the pain I'm just cut this rule Yeah just pretty much, I'm not going to say useless.

Like I understand it, given a player straight from high school one year to really, like, develop his body and all that. But if you believe that this 17 to 18 year olds really like that, which is rare, not every single 17 and 18 year old is going to get drafted into the league, you know, take them. Like, you're just stopping them from a year of getting a life-changing money. And I think, of course, are different now with the NIL and college and shit like that. But still, like NBA money, and NBA rookie money,

doesn't compare to NIL at all. So I'll cut it. It's crazy. You can be 18 and go to the fucking military and do all this. But you can't play for the PACEUS. You can't play for like the Orlando Magic. It's so weird. Like it's weird, bro.

Play for the magic, please. I do feel like it's unnecessary to some regard. I think it's just to be expected most players do one year for all the reasons that it's beneficial to most players. But yeah, I think anomaly should be allowed to do it. Maybe we can say change and there's an appeal process.

Maybe you have to do something. to prove that you're allowed to come in. I don't know how they fucking decide that. They look at you and like, Vice says big enough, you can survive. Brolic checked, good. Whatever it is, I do think some anomaly should be allowed to go straight out of the league.

There's like a BMI minimum. Yeah. You take a fucking IQ test. He's developed enough. Yeah. Like, and if that was the case, still, like, there would be maybe like one or two players, even over the last like five years

who would be like league ready. Like one B would be one of those guys. I think Cooper Flagg could have played in the league as well. And out of the number of, over our picks. That may be like honestly it for real or last few years. I wonder if you have to keep this rule to, you kind of have to like protect owners and GMs from like going too crazy. How now we don't.

No, let's be done. I'm saying like if you're, if you're the NBA, that's why, that's why you would do it because it's like you see somebody foaming at them out to get this, this number one pick when they're in sixth grade and stuff like that. And it's like, we have to put in these rules that you guys don't go crazy. So that's why I think from the league's perspective, That's where it makes the most sense. But I'm with you.

I would... There's a lot of high school stars. The phenoms that don't work out. They would have taken some of these guys. They're taking Cam Reddish number one. Yes. Yeah. And so I think...

And I'm okay with that. That's on you, buddy. That's on you, GM. I just make for greater stores in the NBA. I agree. But also, if you were operating in the world where the... And maybe if it's different now because of the new lottery rules, then it's different. But when you're operating where the worst teams get the best picks and we're

trying to replenish stuff. If the bad teams are constantly at the bottom because they're reaching and they're doing wild stuff because, you know, you don't have that extra year of data, I can see Adam Silver being like, it's actually very beneficial for the, for the owners here. Yeah. But I would, I would cut it. Yeah. Okay.

Next. Salary gap. We got to keep. Let's cut it. Let's get crazy. Fuck, no. Let's get crazy. Let's pay everybody what they're worth.

Janus is worth $200 million. Give him $200 million. Too. Mad. Some people might say all the best players to go to one team, probably. Yeah, and that ruins all the middle of the pack and, like, lower tier players too.

They ain't get shit. But also like, so? Also, not really. Not really, though, because owners have only a certain amount of money they're going to spend on this team. You can't, you like, this happens in soccer. You can't spend unlimited money forever.

Maybe Steve bomber can, I guess. But most teams can't spend unlimited money forever. Every owner is an owner because they have enough money by a team. They're going to give somebody that $50 million. Like, it's going to net out to like around the same.

Let's do it. Let's cut it. I don't know if you should cut it. I think it should be altered. I think if you're one of the best players. I figure who I heard it from either Steph or Draman or something like that. But they should have ownership with a team too. If you're like that,

or should you have like certain clauses in your contract. That presents certain issues. I don't think they should own the team. But I do think I'll say change. There should be some way that for a certain type of players, like Supermax players, they can count to 35% of the cap, but I can pay them whatever they want.

And it doesn't count towards the cap. I should be able to exceed that for the best players in the league. Yeah. Something like that. Or even just, just, just drop it where you can pay him 35, but only counts the 25, you know. If you, if you want to keep the salary cap and you go and spend a certain amount. Yeah, Steve Baum, really so pissed with this happened, bro. Fuck, man.

He was a Joe Blazer. He's the head of the crew. They call it the bomber rule. You can give it extra 10% that doesn't count towards the cap. Bam, man. Legit, the bomber rule. That'd be hilarious. I actually hope that happens.

Just despite him. Just do it. Let's do it. And still leave all the penalties on the cap. Oh, yeah. Okay, next. 12 minute quarters. Are you saying you are more or less?

Up to the eye of the beholder. Oh, okay. 15 minute quarter games. Let's get crazy. Jesus Christ. I think it's fine. I never heard anyone have a gripe with the quarters. Let's play shorter games.

Young attention span. People can't sit down for a whole basketball game. Five minute quarters. Nine minute quarters. It's on two-k-shed. You got to go, you got to go 10. I do think 10. You got to go 10.

Yeah, yeah. Because in international competition and every other league in the world, in the WMBA, you played 10 minute quarters. So there should be a standard amount of time that a basketball game is. And 10 minutes probably is the number. They were worried about the wrong type of time. Start the fucking games on time. Really, that's the main thing, bro. Even the NFL is kind of lacking right now, bro.

They're running a little bit late. I used to enjoy like, oh, shit. Like, I can't like really. could kick up my time. I have to be really pristine and really watch the game at 12 p.m. were suited and booted. The NBA, they're going to be 17 minutes late and no one cares. No, they, we care. The NBA does not care. Exactly. Okay. Next.

Shot clock being 24 seconds. I agree with this. However, I want to change one of the shot clock rules because it used to be that if you get an offensive rebound, the shot clock resets back to 24. And then they changed it to where the shot clock Revert's down to 14 seconds. I want to change it back. I think if you get an offensive rebound,

you should have a full 24 seconds again. It's kind of cool, though, like, well, cool, and since this is more like pandemonium happening and guys are like more frantic and they just make OD quick decisions when they notice, like, oh shit, shot clock, and he reset to 24. I kind of like it, as is now.

I think we should keep it. No, I think we should go back. Every offensive rebound, if you didn't finish the possession, and finish it. And so we get a new one. That's 24 seconds. That's fair. Okay. Next. We have traveling slash gather rules. Traveling slash gather rules. Bro, those rules are so finicky already as is. I really don't know what you could change or try to like emphasize on. I think it's so loose. Like, and they they did it a couple years ago where they were picking on Jordan

pool and calling carrying and stuff like that i do think we may have gotten a little bit too far we maybe have gone a little bit too far into the ig trainer world where you can you can hold the ball upside down you can you can manipulate the the ball manipulate gather steps i'm gonna get my bob coozy listen let me see y'all play 60s basketball let me see strict crossovers and see what real fundamentals yeah let's make t j mcconnell a star hell nah man you're ruining the swagging to like that. Manipulate these guys. I want the slag of the game.

You don't want the fundamentals? Fuck no. You need the fundamentals, of course. We get a reward sneaky athletic guys. Do you really? They've been rewarded all their lives. Fair. Keep.

All right, next. Defense of three seconds. Oh, we're move. We're moving. I think we're talking about scoring inflation being too crazy. We want to have real defense back. Some of that's ever been fixed. You allow defensive three seconds that immediately fixes it.

That immediately makes it. to do the math game, give the spacing, and make the room wide open. You wouldn't take it away completely, right? You would, like, make it seven seconds or something like that? Completely. Really? Really, go bare 24 seconds in a row.

Yeah, defense is fully, eh, yo. We're running zone. You're running the league. No one scores at the rim. You want it, go dunk on me. Oh, my gosh. Go earn it at the line, idiot. I don't know, make it eight seconds or whatever.

I don't know, something higher, but I do think that's an easy way to make defense better and reward rim protectors. now I'm with it Take it out Entirely entirely Entirely Entirely take it out

Let's make one be the best player Today Of all time Of all time How funny would it be If they changed the rule Yeah for him Dude so many

Architized players Would be completely fucked But they can't stay there forever Because then we got picking pot bigs Off the dribble 3s They had to come out And still play defense What's a Sarr doing

Offensively like What's he supposed to do Let's some screens dude Like slashes are just completely new to like him completely new. Yeah, we probably have to up it. Yeah. But I would say we should change it a little bit. Yeah.

Okay. Next. Goaltending. Take it out. Let him do it. Yeah, take it out. Take it out. Only, but only if it hits the rim, then it's live.

Yeah. You still can't shoot. You still can't block a shot on the way down before it hits the room. But as soon as it, as soon as it touched that, it's like. Oh, smack it off the room. Yeah. Okay. That's cool.

Yeah. They require a skill. That's the, that's the international rule. Would that count as a block? Yeah, why not? Either block or rebound. And we're trying to make Wembe

the greatest fantasy basketball player of all time. Either one. But I do think that that should happen. Because you know how, like sometimes, imagine if the Kauai shot

happened and is bouncing like four times. And B out of nowhere. Yeah. No, man. And it becomes and swats it. That way, I need nothing but swish. We're not doing this this bouncing back and forth

We're not doing these accidental shots I'm going going blocking That Halley shot It That's why You saw the agenda You know what I'm saying The ball code comes all the way up

O'Jan and nobody out of nowhere Swats it on the way down Is that really hard to do to time that Yes Okay I wonder if it's hard But I wonder if it becomes not hard Because they just get used to it It's like

Would that illuminate cherry picking Mm-hmm Because everyone will just crashed aboard. You're winning the entire game. Yeah, you would have somebody designated there. But it's kind of like timing a putback dunk, which I think at a certain point you do get good at that skill.

But it takes a while to really understand where the ball is going to go. Yeah. But I would change the rule to be that. Okay. Next. 82 game season. I'm keeping it. Keeping it?

Yeah. This is the easiest answer of all time. Change it. Obviously, it should be lower. There is no reason to have it this high except for money is literally the only reason. And I guess preserving total game records and like career accolades in that way, the game changes all the time, record change all the time. It is what it is.

The league would be so much better. Fans would be so much happier. Players would be so much happier aside the paychecks if the game was like a 60 game season. And every game mattered more. Yeah, man. It would be so less stressful as an NBA fan. Instead of like logging into my NBA app. Fuck, eight games on tonight.

How am I going to watch all this shit? Instead of that, three or four. You just can't care about all the games. It's impossible to ask a fan to care about 82 games in a season. That's unrealistic. The NFL is dominant because 16 games is a mad, manageable number. You wait an entire week. If we had to watch an NBA game every three days and sit with the pain of a loss for half a week.

No, I couldn't do it for three days, but hell not. It's so much better, so much healthier of a league if we had to sit and want and wait for something. I just keep thinking about the history of the game and like the accolades and all that stuff where it's like, dang, you would have to start a separate record book. Maybe, yeah. And we'd have to just like normalize like per game records and stuff. That happens in sports all the time. It'd be weird. That's an, that's an unfortunate downside.

Shit like that happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So I can get with it. That's been one of my biggest holdups is just like I don't know how the, the history and like the fabric of the lead changes. Yeah. With that.

Same thing. The NFL out of the 17 game. That changes the fabric of the league. See, but that's true. That's adding stuff. But like taking stuff back seems even much more extreme than. Yeah. Yeah.

And to me, that's probably just because we haven't seen it. And we won't because of money because that means less revenue. So that's why you haven't seen. That's why it feels extreme. I think in terms of why records matter, it's no different. Either way, it changes in a way that can't be fucked with it anymore. But it's just a money thing. It don't ever happen.

Yeah. Yeah. Man, would this be a special sport with 60 game seasons? The only reason why I'm like, I can understand someone saying, oh, keep it as is. I mean, it is kind of cool to see teams build around and really be a reward for having good depth and a full quality rotation. eight players, nine players or whatever, but outside of that, like, you still do that meaningful. I mean, the, there's still a lot of games. The moment we do it, Brown solidified, nobody's ever touching Brown's record.

Nobody, yeah, nobody, nobody, nobody, we need to do this. Nobody might not touch it right now. Imagine you play every team twice and the team in your division three times. And that's how, that's how it should go. That's like 62 games. Yeah. Now, it is going to be crazy because I, I am kind of hesitant. I think I've said it before where I don't think the, um,

I don't think just reducing the amount of games is instantly going to fix everybody's like, oh, people are getting hurt too much because I think that that's more attributed to the style of play as opposed to just the number of games. And so once we play 66 games and Yokic is out for 25% of the season instead of, you know, 10%, then I wonder how people are going to react to that. Sure. You can't solve everything. This is a solving the regular season doesn't matter thing to me.

Yeah. Now, if you do this, do you also reduce, like, instead of going to game seven, have it bring back to, like, five games series or not? For the first round, first round, we can maybe play with that, but also that wouldn't happen because of money. But every other game, yeah, the playoffs, the playoffs should stay the same. Yeah, I don't think you need to.

Okay. Okay. Next. Conferences dictating playoff bracket. I used to be on the side of those just do seating, no conferences. Now as time has gone on, I'm clinging on to any way we can have rivalries and history and culture in the NBA. Conferences is like the one way we can do that.

We can't abolish that. We need to have long-term rivalries because these teams play each other every year. Yeah. Because they're taking away every other avenue for that. There's not a whole lot going for it in terms of that in the league anymore. So we need the Spurs and the Thunder to play each other every year. I need the conferences to be here.

I think you should play people in your division more than you play any other team. And I think that if you win your division, that you should have a home quarter. advantage in the first round. I'm going to go as far as that one, but I do think they should find some way for divisions to matter. No, it'll be kind of tough. They should be.

That's what used to be like, 2013 or something. Yeah, you're right. You're right. And then when I go back to like, I don't know, 2012 or whatever and I see how to fuck with the 2012. Yeah.

I just spit out a burger out of my mouth. Dude loves, 2012. What year was it when the when the Mavericks won like 62 games? It wasn't 24, 12 obviously. It was like maybe old. Well, lost the division. Yeah.

I forget what year was. I don't know. I think it was like like 13, 14 or something like that. But close enough. It would like, listen, to steal from Adam's favorite league now, the NFL, that's how they do it. And I think that it would be, again, it would be a change. But as time goes on, especially if you. you, if you couple that with the fact that you're playing your division more than you're playing

anybody else in the conference, it would make sense to people and it would, it would, uh, embolden those divisional rivalries. I think that a lot, a lot of rivalries and the easiest way to do, to create a rivalry is with proximity and just with like the people around you. True. And frequency. Like just make them see each other a lot and make those games matter more. You just walk by somebody three times a day and it's like, yo, do you follow me? What is the problem? Like, bro, I'll beat the fuck out of you. Exactly.

Like, yo, get off my tip right now. And so. And the people around me, they'll beat the fuck of the people around you. If you can create, if you can create that, I think that that helps for the health of the league long term. So I think that those, that those two things should be implemented. Yeah. I agree. Okay.

Next. Every playoff round being best out of seven. Keep it. We can, we can cut the first round to five games. I guess we could. I'd be. I'd be okay with it. I see no reason to other than like

impatience. Like get me on to the second round. This is boring. But there's no reason to. Nobody loses anything from there being seven rounds in seven games. Well, I think when they start, especially this last time,

man, they were starting games 10.30 at night. Y'all wrapped this up in a week. 10. 30 nights, bad. That's just because you want to be an old man at the age of 27. No, man.

You're just dying to be elderly. Starting the game at 1030 is a lot. That's fine. Whatever, you are dying to be elderly. You're grasping. It's not. It's not even just me. It is you, though.

It's not just. It's not just. I didn't say just. It's not. I didn't say anything about just anything. Okay. And that's what I'm saying. I'm speaking for the people.

No, you know. He just said, he just said earlier that they start, they start games 15, 17 minutes after after the time. You're saying that the game starts at 10.30. Now you're not starting to 10. Where are we up until 2 o'clock in the morning? I know. And that could be all.

And doing it again the next day and the next day and the next day. That's a bit OD. Okay. Now you got to move to L.A. and shit just so you can compromise with the league. Now, you're fucking. Now, never do that. I hate L.A.

There. Dude loves L. That's funny. 2211-1 home court format. I think it's fine. I think it's probably better than what we had before. I like it. Yeah, for the final specifically, the 2-3-2 is.

Why do you change it for this round? Yeah, I think we're good here. I think this is a good change. We don't need to fix. Yeah, I agree. Keep it as is. Next. The playing tournament. Change. Keep it. I think

it's cool. I should wait. Never mind. I can't read. I was thinking NBA Cup for a second. We can't wait till the cup starts. We can keep the playing tournament. Change it. You have to be within a certain amount of games for it to trigger the playing tournament. Okay, so the 10 seed doesn't automatically get it

if they're a distant 10 seed. Yeah. You got to be within five games for it to Okay, that's fine. Good change. That's an easy. one nice, nice simple change to not make it tiresome. I agree because now you're forcing teams unnecessarily to fight for the lives for no reason when they've had like a perfectly regular season. But also those teams just get blitzed.

So it's like whatever. I guess they. Yeah, but also it's like, I've had 82 games to prove that I'm better than you. I might be seven, seven games ahead of you. And I'll make me do it. And now my season comes down to one game. I don't like that.

Fair. Go ahead. Next. The draft lottery. Man, they've done too much change to it. At this point, let it be for what it is right now. I don't know what it is going on right now, man. So much shit.

We haven't gone through one cycle of the lottery with the new odds. It can stay for right now. Don't change it right now. You know what, fine. I'll zag. Change it every year. Every single season we've got something new, you can never gamify it. You can never tank because you don't know what's coming next.

We reveal how the lottery is going to take place the day of the lottery. So you have no clue. Maybe one year reward tankers. The next year reward teams that win. You never fucking know. You gotta stay on your toes. You gotta try your darndest every year. It's like the fucking hunger games.

Hell yeah. Quarter quell every single year. We're doing it. You know what the best strategy for that might be? Stay in mid, brough. You always are on every scenario possible. Try hard. Try to win some games.

You never know what's going to happen. You know what? Get rid of it. Get rid of the lottery. Make it up as we go, WWE style. Whatever suits the narrative that year, we make it up and we choose it.

The NFL doesn't have a lottery, right? He's just based off standing? Yeah. Because you can't really tanking that sport. It's only 16 games. And if you tank, you die. Your head knocked off. To health violation.

And the fandom is like, don't accept it. Yeah. All right. Next. The second apron. Man, do I hate that shit. Get rid of it. Get rid of it.

The unfortunate part is they're going to get rid of it. They're riding so on the wall that we're dealing with this bullshit for a few years. And it's so obviously not going to stick. Yeah. I don't see too many advantages based off it. It just made so much things, so many things more complicated. for no reason and it's just binding his elbow i don't think players nor fans are really beneficiaries of this at all yeah i think once you have uh once you have a salary cap and like you have the luxury

tax and everything like the warriors when they won their chip in 22 you know they had a stupid high luxury tax bill and they were paying like 450 million dollars or something like that but also that team had been together at least the core with step and jremont like those guys have been there a minute. So it's not like they just went out and paid, you know, paid KD 50 million and paid LeBron 50 million and got this super team. Like that was a team that was built. So I think if that's the, if that's one of the pillars that you want teams to be based on, you should allow that. Yeah, at least like for homegrown like stars like that. I agree. You can change it and alternate if you want. Really just go go in general. But if you're going to keep it adjusted so teams like,

I don't know, OKC or wherever you can think of the Devere Nuggets can get penalized for paying and growing Jamal Murray and PJ and your coach it's up and all that. Yep. Okay. And that is it.