The NBA may not be the most popular of the four major North American sports, but they definitely have the biggest individual superstars. That’s part of the NBA’s marketing appeal. They market players, while the NFL markets teams. Everything about a player is unique and helps make them the stars that they are.
Even things such as pregame rituals. From Garnett and LeBron playing with powder, to Wade’s chin-ups on the rim contribute in making the NBA what it is. Will all of that come to an end?
New Rule: From the time pregame introductions end, teams will have 90 seconds to return to the court and be ready for the opening tip.
This will effectively limit the pregame handshake, powder toss and other rituals that players have adopted before the line up for the opening tip.
Apparently this is an effort to speed up the game, part of an across the board effort. It smells of some television executives’ complaints in the form of a memo to the league. Of course, if the league really wanted to speed up the game one fewer television timeout per half would do it. But we know that is never going to happen, so the players putting on a show for fans must be curtailed.
Source: probasketballtalk
