Report: NBA Considering Adding Replay Challenges In Near Future

Following in the cleat-steps of MLB and the NFL, the NBA is considering expanding its replay system to include coach’s challenges.

According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, the addition of coach’s challenges “at some point soon” was a hot topic of discussion at Tuesday’s GMs meeting.

During the lively talks on the subject, sides were split as to how limited the new system should be. Some were advocating for coach’s challenges to be restricted to non-judgment calls such out-of-bounds plays, goaltending and shot-clock violations while others wanted coaches to be able to challenge everything — including foul calls.

Lowe said the NBA would probably rule in favor of implementing the more restricted system for coach’s challenges, if the league opts to implement it at all.

“Allowing coaches to challenge fouls is something of a Pandora’s box,” Lowe writes. “Should they be able to challenge non-calls, too? … There is a lot to determine, but accounts of the depth of the discussion suggest this concept has some new momentum.”

It also was unclear whether a challenge would cost a team a timeout regardless of whether the coach won or lost the challenge.

The NBA has experimented with coach’s challenges before during the Summer League, so expect that to happen again this summer. It doesn’t seem overly likely, but if the experiment goes well we could see an expanded replay system in the NBA soon.

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