Hear Me Out: NBA Players Should Be Allowed To Throw Objects On The Court During Games

So this video had the internet abuzz last night. People were calling for Jamal Murray to be suspended, memes were flying everywhere, and we may have gotten a new Barstool beef between Nate and Greenie thanks to Jamal Murray's heating pad. 

Now I'm not here to say what Murray did was right because it clearly wasn't. If KAT slips on that heating pad and fucks up his knee, Adam Silver suddenly has a PR crisis on his hands that he will inevitably fuck up yet again.

HOWEVAH, I've long said that there should be a special set of rules that applies for each NBA arena to give a little extra homecourt advantage. Part of the charm about baseball that even Rob Manfred hasn't neutered out of the sport is the fact you have ballparks with wonky dimensions and environmental factors that gives the home team an edge since they can build their roster around the quirks of that park. In football, the same thing can be said for teams that play on a fast track indoors or a frozen tundra.

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Unfortunately, courts remains pretty standard in basketball, as the immortal Coach Dale taught us once upon a time.

But why should it be that way? Having an advantage at home should go beyond a loud crowd and a friendly whistle. Home teams could go all Red Auerbach by making sure the fans weren't working when a run and gun team came to town or the hot shower would coincidentally go off only in the visitors locker room. Or the NBA could just let teams lay their cards out on the table for everyone to see by allowing each arena to have its own rules. 

Back when I was in college, my roommates and I played an incredibly ahead of its time Nintendo game called Dusty Diamond All-Star Softball. Each team would draft 9 players from a pool of 60, with each player having different strengths, weaknesses, and sometimes superpowers. Some could fly, others could run over the catcher, etc. In order to even the playing field against my two buddies who would play this game NONSTOP (I'm talking in the corner during parties), I said we should have people choose one homefield quirk to add whenever they were the home team. I chose to mute the TV whenever I was home since nobody could hear the pop up sound going "boooooOOOOOO, OOOOOOooooo", which meant you could only figure out where the ball was going to land based on the size of its shadow. I still got worked more times than not, but it definitely made the games more exciting and competitive, which is what every sports league should strive for.

It may already be hard to play basketball in Denver because of the thin air. But it would be 10 times harder if they chose to make their home court a place where bench players on both teams can throw stuff onto the court during the game. I'm not saying an unlimited amount of objects, because that would quickly degrade into an ECW situation where there are more objects on the court than players.

I'm thinking more of a strategic game inside the game, like Assault in American Gladiators, which in my humble opinion was the best game in the entire show.

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Suddenly the 12th man on your bench doesn't have to be good at shooting a basketball if he is good at shooting a Nerf gun on the court.

Maybe in Miami, you don't only face the Heat basketball team but you also face the literal heat with the already balmy South Beach temperatures getting even hotter with Pat Riley turning up the thermostat to triple digits, which is kinda fitting since Pat Riley is the actual devil of the NBA.

Issac Baldizon. Getty Images.

If you are a Western Conference team that is sick of being threed to death by the Warriors, simply remove the three point line from your court before the season starts. Think how much more intimidating the Grit and Grind Grizzlies would've been if they had an actual grizzly bear chained under the basket or how tough it would be to play the Atlanta Hawks if there were a half dozen or so trained hawks flying in the arena and ready to pounce at any time.

I realize that I am now just shifting to animals that could not only maim or kill a player, but also potentially a paying customer, which would be an insurance nightmare for the NBA. But I really do think they should allow each NBA team to add a rule that gives them a homecourt advantage, at least for slog of the 82 game regular season. 

Also the Timberwolves should be allowed to unleash a living timberwolf(?) into the Nuggets hotel at some point before Game 3 that has been trained to find the person that has the scent that is on the heating pad. If Jokic gets the timberwolf before it gets to Murray, no harm no foul. If the timberwolf gets to Murray before Jokic can wrestle it down, then as a wise man once said…

If only we were selling a shirt that had that quote on it.