NBA:Rule Changes
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The rules are not fixed. Each off-season the league opens a window to propose changes, and what is adopted is written here.
Where changes are proposed
The commissioner opens a Rule Clarification / Rule Changes / Anything New topic in the NBA: Rule Clarification forum. That thread is where a proposal belongs — not a team forum, and not a transaction thread.
Clarifications are as welcome as changes. If a rule is unclear rather than wrong, post it there and it gets sharpened.
How a change is made
| 1 | A GM posts a proposal in the off-season thread |
| 2 | It is discussed in the open. Not every proposal goes further — some stop at discussion |
| 3 | Proposals with support go to a vote |
| 4 | The commissioner adopts the result |
| 5 | The adopted rule is written to this wiki |
There is no guarantee anything changes in a given year.
When
The window opens in the off-season and runs a few weeks — in 2024 it was June 21 to July 15. It is not strictly enforced. Proposals posted well outside it have been taken up and answered.
A thread is named for the season the change would take effect, not the year it is discussed. The thread titled 2021 ran from April 2019 to September 2020. Check the title before assuming when a rule started.
Writing it down
This wiki is the rules. A change that is agreed but never written here does not survive contact with the next disagreement.
The league has already lost one this way. A 2019 vote to allow free agent signings during the playoffs was never applied to the written rules, the restriction went on being enforced in practice, and when it resurfaced in 2025 the discussion moved to Discord and never came back. The result was a rule that was simultaneously voted down, still enforced, and contradicted by the only written version of it.
So:
- Adopted changes get written to the affected page, not just announced
- Discord is fine for discussion, but it is not where a rule lives
- If you find the wiki saying something the league does not actually do, contact
TAB rather than working around it
Unspecified
Who votes, and what carries a vote, is not written down anywhere. In practice the commissioner runs it. If you need to know the threshold for a specific proposal, ask before you count on it.
See also
- League Structure — the commissioner and TAB
- Off-Season — the phases the change window sits alongside
- GM Responsibilities — what is required of you under the current rules