Noah Vonleh had an exceedingly sick dunk in the first minute of this game. Frazier put into words what everybody was thinking: it was a Greek Freak-esque dunk. However, not everything was as it should have been. Despite the sickness of the dunk, there were no replays of it, and without the audiovisual reminder of how sick the dunk had been, it vanished from the collective viewership’s consciousness within minutes.
This time, I can’t even fault the Knicks’ broadcast editing team. There simply wasn’t a point in the next five minutes of game action where a replay could have been shown because neither team fouled, lost the ball out of bounds, or called a timeout in that span. Under the current NBA ruleset, a replay in a situation like this simply would never happen.
That’s why I propose a change to the rules: every three minutes, a “replay timeout” is called. During the “replay timeout”, the television broadcast shows a rapid-fire highlight package showing the exciting plays that occurred since the last replay timeout. The in-arena jumbotron shows something similar. To make sure that neither team is unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged by the replay timeout, players are not allowed to talk to each other or their coach during it. Players breaking this rule get a technical foul the first time and are ejected for the second infraction, except in the fourth quarter, where players who talk during the replay timeout get ejected immediately.
I feel like this adjustment to the rules will make the job of the highlight maker that much easier (which should be the NBA’s #1 priority) while also not damaging the on-court product too much. I mean, who doesn’t like watching replays of dunks?