League Approves the Coach’s Challenge for the 2019-20 NBA Season

The coaches are going to have a little more power from the sidelines this coming season.

Earlier in the week, the NBA’s board of governors approved a pair of new rules, which will be implemented this coming season. One of the rules will allow the league’s replay center to initiate replay proceedings for certain types of plays, and second, the coaches will be granted challenges, similar to the NFL.

Both rules gained an unanimous amount of votes from all 30 NBA teams.

The coach’s challenge in particular has been used in the G League for the past two seasons and has received further testing during this year’s Summer League. The new rule will be used this coming season as a one-year trial. Teams will be provided with one challenge throughout the game, which they can utilize to question any play that occurs on the court, including a personal foul or a goal-tend.

In the final two minutes of both the fourth quarter and overtime, all out of bounds, goal-tends and basket-interference calls will be subjected to review if not challenged.

The one challenge limit will be a good tester for the NBA and will not do much in terms of harming the pace of play.