by Rob Ryder
Courtesy of SportsJones.com

So I was watching game 5 of the Utah/Dallas series on TNT, and they ran that Budget Rental Car commercial where the personal trainer comes out and introduces himself to a new client, then strains and strains until he finally cracks a walnut between his gluteus maxima (butt cheeks to you and me) then offers the broken nut to the horrified client. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, this is way too close to the three quarters of basketball I just watched.

Then they put up the numbers -- fast-break points after three quarters: Utah-10, Dallas-4. Michael Finley, Steve Nash, Howard Eisley, Dirk Nowitzki -- these speedy, dynamic players completed two fastbreaks in 36 minutes of basketball. Final score: 85-84. Something is very wrong here.

I love the NBA. I mean it. For me, it's a 30-year marriage. You don't just walk away because the sex goes south. You try to spice things up. To its credit, the NBA is trying. But going zone? Now you're talking divorce. Look, if zones are going to increase scoring, what coach in his right mind is going to play zone?

What we will see is the nefarious schemers throwing up a lot of weird box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos and who knows what-all that'll keep the ball out of the hands of the artists we come to watch. And guys like Olden Polynice, Mateen Cleaves, and Bo Outlaw will be clanking a lot of wide-open 16-footers.

I've worked as basketball coordinator on a number of Hollywood movies: White Men Can't Jump (yeah, Woody actually does have game), Blue Chips (yes, we were the ones who introduced Shaq to Penny -- sorry about that, CWebb) plus a bunch of turkeys which will go unnamed. And one of the perks was getting to run with these guys. Working on Blue Chips, playing with the likes of Shaquille and Allan Houston and Rodney Rogers, I learned first hand, man, these guys are not just huge but fast. Everywhere I turned I was running into somebody. Somebigbody.

Then came the epiphany -- THE GAME OF BASKETBALL IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. And no amount of tinkering (allowing zones, widening the lane, raising the rim) is going to fix a 100-year growth spurt.

But what if you pulled two players off the floor? Played 4 on 4?

The beauty of this solution lies in its simplicity. So what if James Naismith (all 5 feet 9 inches of him) turns over in his grave?

Some friends and I organized the first 4-ball games in the summer of 1998 in UCLA's Pauley Pavilion with Toby Bailey, J.R. Henderson, and Kris Johnson. The games proved what we had anticipated. In 4-ball, the fastbreak is back with a vengeance. The no-look pass, the alley-oop, the dunk off the back door -- all the great stuff that fans and players love is back. Guys can't help but run. Mobile big men love it because they have room to maneuver on the low post, slashers can get all the way to the basket, and shooters get more open looks from the outside. Double-team at your own risk -- because now it's easier to hit the cutter down the lane or find the open three-point shot.

Plus, in 4-ball, the defender can't rely on help so much. Larry Brown of the Sixers told us he particularly liked this aspect. You've got to really move your feet on defense.

By the way, the real reason scoring is down in the NBA is that all these knucklehead millionaires everyone seems so intent on slamming these days are playing smarter and tougher half-court defense (for a full 48 minutes) than the league has seen in years.

And why is the fast break near extinction? I recently met up with my old coach at Princeton, Pete Carril (now with the Sacramento Kings). As Carril says, "It's simple -- NBA coaches started teaching transition defense."

But the toughest transition defense in the world will not stop the fast break in 4-ball. And the smartest, rotating 4-man half-court defense won't come close to shutting down today's aerialistic offensive arsonists. (Scores in our trial games have been up in the 120s and even 130s.)

But none of the existing leagues is about to change over to 4-on-4.

That's why a group of us has formed a company to launch a new nationwide summer pro league. The 4-Ball League. (Trust us, it'll catch fire.) We've enlisted a key executive from the CBA, three guys from the television and business communities, and a couple of former NBA players, and we're making a run at a summer 2002 season. We've crunched the numbers (ouch) and put together a business plan. We're attracting some seed money from a group of Hollywood folks and professional athletes. We've been meeting with top-shelf sports marketing and market research companies for over a year now. We're also reaching out to businessmen nationwide who have a love for the game and the vision to finance us.

The world of minor league sports is not for the faint of heart. Witness the ongoing struggles of the ABA 2000 and the IBL. That's why we're going in the summer in the biggest cities in America. That's why we're going with a new and vastly improved version of the best game in the world. And that's why we've also redesigned basketball with the television viewer in mind.

Over the last couple of years, we've systematically built our business model (while learning from the mistakes of the IBL, the ABA 2000 and, most recently, the EXFL).

We ran more games last year, and we're back at UCLA right now, every Tuesday afternoon in May, with a bunch of local pros back from overseas, refs, and an official scorer.

Because we realized, as long as we're changing the game, why not solve some of its other maddening problems? Check out these new ideas:

NBA games average close to 50 free throws a game. We feel this kills flow. So we're consolidating things. Fouled in the act of shooting? You get one foul shot worth two points. Fouled while shooting a three-pointer? One foul shot worth three points. Fouled while shooting and the ball goes in? Count the bucket and add one point automatically -- an easy way to save 15 seconds of standing around for that "and one" free throw.

And here's our latest: we're borrowing the "power play" concept from hockey. At the third team foul in each quarter, instead of the player going to the line for free throws, the fouler has to step off the court for one possession. The ball is immediately inbounded -- the offended team with a four-on-three advantage. Once the three defenders regain possession and cross midcourt, the fouler is allowed to return on the fly.

Think about it. The purpose of free throws is to punish a team for excessive fouling. The power play is another way of imposing that punishment. I like to ask, "What would you rather do after a foul, spend 30 seconds watching somebody clank free throws, or spend 24 seconds watching four men trying to beat three to the hoop?"

It's radical, but it works. And it also gets that fourth quarter, momentum-killing deliberate foul out of the game. The 4-Ball League is committed to keeping the ball in play.

Speaking of radical and hockey, last year, the NHL started going 4-on-4 during overtime to increase scoring (after testing it in the IHL). Will the NBA realize that 4-on-4 is the way to go? Probably not, but that won't stop us from creating a fun summer run. Did you know that virtually every NBA coach runs 4-on-4 drills in practice? The players love it.

Plus in 4-ball, the matchups become more critical. And the fans find it easier to follow who's out there on the floor.

I've got a letter (not an official endorsement) from Dean Smith saying, "4-ball is an interesting concept. Imagine Michael Jordan playing 4-on-4 given his quickness and one-on-one abilities."

This has been one of the most positive aspects of our endeavor, the encouragement of some of basketball's sagest coaches. Hall-of-Famer Pete Newell (director of the Big Man's Camp) is even helping us with ideas on how to clean up the post play and other rule changes.

In 4-ball, when the offensive post player initiates contact and slams his way to the hoop right through the defender, he'll be called for a charge.

Did you know that the last three minutes of the average NBA playoff games take more than 16 minutes to finish? What wife isn't hip to this one? "Honey, there's only a minute and a half left." "Yeah, right, tell it to my lawyer."

In 4-ball games, all commercial time-outs will be spread evenly through all four quarters. Team time-outs will last only 30 seconds. There will be no back-to-back timeouts allowed. And there'll be none of this, "Hey, I've dribbled myself into a huge mess so I'm just gonna call timeout and save my sorry butt." Can you imagine letting a quarterback call timeout when he's about to get sacked?

4-ball games will feature 48 minutes of action and still end in under two hours. And no commercials during the last three minutes. Imagine that.

Anything else? We're open to ideas. We'd like to get rid of the three-point shot, but it's become too ingrained in the fan's mindset. Plus it's a good way to allow a trailing team to bomb their way back in. But please, no wacky ideas about four-point shots or extras points for dunks, or confusing concepts like the new ABA's 3-D defense rule. We're serious. We're purists.

Basketball is a game of rhythm and flow, speed and finesse. We want to give the most talented players the room to do what they do best. We want to put the onus on the defender to make a stop. We want to see these players run, run, and run some more.

Finding financing for a new league in this "dot-gone" world isn't easy, but we're a lot closer. We're absolutely committed to top-down "single entity" control. No loose cannon owners, no screwy promotions, no cheerleaders in hot tubs.

The Arena Football League is our closest model (although our game is way cooler than theirs). Those brave-hearted folks started with four teams and a diagram on a napkin. Now they've got 19 teams up and running (with each franchise worth between 7 and 12 million) plus an entire farm league -- the AF2 with 28 teams.

The 4-Ball League is not about to go off half-cocked. We're making no insulting claims that we'll offer more than the NBA. Nobody in the world comes close to matching those guys and their incredible basketball talent.

What we are offering is a reasonably priced ticket for a great show. We're not ready for prime time. Not even national broadcast (local maybe). But we're absolutely convinced that we'll carve out a significant cable rating. Why? Because we've created the most telegenic game in the world. And there are millions of folks out there just like you who love hoops. You'll watch in the summer, because baseball is boring, soccer sucks, and football doesn't start 'til September.

As you watch the rest of the playoffs, squint your eyes and imagine the same game with the two slowest players off the floor. Suddenly there's room for the stars to really shine. You'll see what I mean. 4-ball rules.

Note: This piece first appeared at InsideHoops.com.