Coach’s challenges: a user’s guide

Be like the Knicks, not the Spurs

In our Monday editorial meeting, David Thorpe was excited about coach’s challenges. He was telling the story of the incredible end of Sunday’s Raptors-76ers game. Every one of three coach’s challenges over the final 13 seconds resulted in Raptors ball, and the Canadian team won by a single point because of them.

Thorpe’s point: those coach’s challenges were not annoying delays. They were fun. His idea: keep everything the same as it is right now, but make it so coaches can only challenge calls in the last two minutes of games within 15 or 20 points or whatever number is fairly considered winnable by both teams.

This got me wondering how coach’s challenges are working right now. Thorpe is correct that we tend to see them as end-game tools, even though they have a much higher rate of success earlier in the game.

The league publishes a big ugly spreadsheet of every single coach’s challenge. I’m as nervous as everyone else about our AI future, but have also been consultin…