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2024 Paris Olympics

Kevin Durant weighs in on if NBA should adopt FIBA rules

© John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

With basketball taking global stage at the 2024 Paris Olympics, debates are once again arising if the NBA should adopt FIBA rules.

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The assumption by most basketball fans is that FIBA is much more physical and allows less flopping compared to the NBA.

Specifically, some of the main differences in the rules are no defensive three seconds in FIBA and players are allowed to hit the ball off the rim once it touches it in FIBA rules. Other differences include four 10 minute quarters in FIBA instead of 12 minute quarters in the NBA, the 3-point line is shorter by about 1.5 feet at its furthest point in FIBA, the court is smaller as well (91’ 10” x 49’2.5 for FIBA and 94×50 for NBA) and only five fouls are allowed compared to six in the NBA. 

Back in 2018, the NBA adopted a new shot clock reset rule after FIBA started using it in 2014-15. With this rule, instead of the shot clock always being reset to 24 seconds, if a team regains possession after the ball hits the rim, the clock goes to 14 seconds.

Phoenix Suns superstar Kevin Durant, who has been among the top NBA players year in and year out since he came in the league 2007 and is Team USA’s all-time leading scorer and now in his fifth international tournament with them in Paris, weighed in on this subject on X Monday, one day after he scored a team-high 23 points and made his first eight shots in the U.S.’s first game of the 2024 Olympics.

Durant asked Tyler Relph, a basketball trainer, what changes he wanted to see in the NBA after Relph posted the NBA needs to adopt FIFA rules.

Relph replied saying that defensive three seconds could be eliminated to create more movement and less iso situations. Durant did not agree with this comment, answering back with “If u want to eliminate defensive 3 seconds then the games will be slower.”

Durant added later: “The beauty of basketball is not callin all them sets but playing off instincts and lettin the talent dictate the game..gettin out in transition, driving and kicking, playing random basketball. U want a trick play every possession like it’s football. That’s not why our game is beautiful.”

Durant then went on to explain what he went by playing random basketball, something new Suns coach Mike Budenholzer likes to say as well.

In the case of the presumption being there’s less flopping under FIBA rules, Durant shared his firsthand experience.

“I been playing fiba for 15 years and I’ve seen some of the nastiest flops you’ll ever see lol baiting the refs to make a call is a universal thing, not just a nba thing,” Durant said. “Yall hate the way Americans play ball, just say that.”

Whatever set of rules Durant has played under, they never seem to throw him off his game. However, there are sometimes tough adjustments for players coming from overseas into the NBA or NBA players playing in international tournaments such as the Olympics.

Do you think the NBA needs to adopt some more rules from FIBA?

Kevin Durant goes off in return to Team USA, 1st Olympic game

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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau

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