1) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor): ban on dunking

Abdul-Jabbar (who was still going by the name Lew Alcindor at the time) was already so unstoppable when he came to UCLA in 1965 that his freshman team would regularly defeat the UCLA varsity team in scrimmages (freshmen were not allowed to play varsity until 1972). He averaged an eye-popping 29.0 points and 15.5 rebounds per game his sophomore season, leading UCLA to a 30-0 record and the NCAA championship. With opponents carping that the 7’1″ Abdul-Jabbar could basically just lay the ball into the basket untethered, the NCAA chose to ban the dunk in 1967. His coach, John Wooden, a noted lifetime dissentient of showboating, actually applauded the regulation rather than lamenting the potential tangible effect it would have on his star. The “Lew Alcindor Rule” did have some causation on its namesake’s stats, but not his overall dominance. In his three years at UCLA, the Bruins won three NCAA titles and lost just two games overall out of 90 (and one of those losses was the “Game of the Century” against Houston when Abdul-Jabbar played with a scratched cornea). The rule would finally be lifted by NCAA in 1976, and by then Kareem was an NBA champion and four-time MVP.

2) Larry Bird: limited allowance of spending over the cap limit

By all accords, the NBA experienced a renaissance in the early ’80s with the rise of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and a renewed Lakers-Celtics rivalry. But when David Stern became executive commissioner of the league in the early ’80s, he knew that his second biggest problem (drug abuse being the top issue) was keeping a competitive balance across all 23 franchises. When the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players was renewed in 1983, Stern pushed for it to include a salary cap that would effectively limit the amount of money any franchise could spend. The NBA became the first major American sports league to institute a cap for the ’84-’85 season, one that included several exceptions. One such exemption, known as the “Bird Rule,” allowed teams to spend above the cap in order to specifically re-sign a player who had spent at least three seasons with them. This was implemented specifically to encourage teams to retain star players, and it was christened the “Bird Rule” due to the belief that it would help the Celtics retain Larry Bird, a free agent-to-be in the summer of 1985. Ironically, the Celtics didn’t actually use their first Bird Rule exception on Larry Bird. They managed to instead extend Bird’s contract before the cap was enacted, and after it took effect used their first Bird Rule exemption to re-sign Cedric Maxwell in 1984. Over the years the regulation has been used for better (Michael Jordan on the Bulls), for worse (Chris Dudley on the Knicks), and in 1988 was finally used on the namesake himself, when the Celtics re-signed Bird again. 

3) Trent Tucker: minimum time remaining on clock to catch and shoot

There has never been, to our knowledge, a scientific study of exactly how quickly a professional-level athlete can catch and shoot a basketball. But the NBA, basing their information on unscientific tests done in European leagues, made their final official statement on the matter. The answer, for all intents and purposes, is 0.3 seconds, and the man to thank for that needed clarification is Tucker. A moderately-used bench shooting specialist for the Knicks throughout the ’80s, Tucker’s day of infamy came in a game against in the Bulls in January of the ’89-’90 season. That was the season the NBA first added tenths of a second to the official game clock, and with .01 seconds left on the clock and the Knicks inbounding, the Bulls expected them to only be able to score on an alley-oop tip-in. Instead, the ball was inbounded to the wide-open Tucker, who turned, shot, and nailed the game winner all in, technically, 0.1 seconds. The Bulls formally protested the outcome and lost but the NBA reviewed the concept at the end of the season and officially decreed that a ball can only be inbounded, caught, and shot if the clock shows 0.3 seconds or higher. Any less time than that, and the ball would need to be tipped in (something that has been done). It became known as the “Trent Tucker Rule,” securing the shooting guard’s place in pro basketball history. FIBA, despite being the supposed source of the NBA’s time denomination, did not adopt the rule officially until 2010. Tucker eventually wound up signing with the Bulls as a free agent, and was part of their ’92-’93 title winning team.

4) Allan Houston: teams are exempted from luxury tax on contracts of waived or retired players

The same year the NBA implemented the Arenas Provision into its CBA, it also established the “Allan Houston Rule.” Its namesake was coming off back-to-back All-Star seasons when the Knicks signed him to a maximum contract extension in 2001, an egregious $100 million over six years. It was widely derided before the ink was even dry, but to Houston’s credit he did put up career best numbers in the first two years of the contract. The wheels started to come off in the third season due to a knee injury, forcing him to play in just 50 games in ’03-’04 and 20 games in ’04-’05. He retired in 2005 and despite not playing a single minute of basketball Houston was still the second-highest paid player in the NBA in ’05-’06 and ’06-’07. Unfortunately for the Knicks, the Allan Houston Rule did not absolve them of paying the remainder of his contract, like the later amnesty clause, but rather just exempted them from the luxury tax hit associated with his salary. In an ironic twist similar to the Bird Rule, the Knicks didn’t use their Allan Houston Rule exception on the player himself. They instead used it on role player forward Jerome James, whom they had just lavished with a five-year, $30 million deal, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of the Knicks circa 2005. It was actually a savvy move by the Knicks to not designate Houston, as they correctly guessed that he would retire, meaning that a medical waiver would exempt his salary from counting against their luxury tax total anyway. Houston attempted two later comebacks after his contract expired, both of which were unsuccessful.

5) George Mikan: expanding the paint area and enforcing the three-second rule

Two decades before Lew Alcindor began to dominate the game of college basketball so much it was deemed legally unfair, a force of nature named George Mikan pulled the same act in the pro ranks. The 6’10”, 245 pound Lakers center was a revelation when he started playing pro basketball in 1947, uprooting the dogma that big men were too awkward to be effective. He had already necessitated a rule change in the college ranks while starring for DePaul, as the NCAA instituted the modern goaltending rule to curb his shot blocking. The NBA found itself in similar dire straits in 1950, as Mikan had led the Lakers to back-to-back titles in dominant fashion, and was showing no signs of letting up. With his lithe athleticism and nimble footwork disguised by his large frame (not to mention goofy, bespectacled visage), he essentially could not be stopped by opposing teams still mired in guard-oriented philosophy. Rather than adjust their rosters and game plans, rival players and coaches chose instead to start complaining to the league office. The NBA responded in ’50-’51 by initially widening the lane from six feet to 10 feet, and then expanding it again during the ’51-’52 season to 12 feet. Though the three-second lane rule was already in effect before 1951, Mikan had developed a strategy of anchoring himself right outside the line and moving inside and out as necessary. The new “Mikan Rule” was designed specifically to prevent that and it did cause his scoring to dip, from 28.4 points per game in ’50-’51 to 23.8 in ’51-’52. But the Lakers adjusted with a more well-rounded offensive strategy, employing more shots for guard Slater Martin and forward Jim Pollard, and still won the next three NBA titles before Mikan retired in 1954. In 1964 the NBA widened the lane one more time, from 12 feet to its current 16 feet.

6) Derek Harper: ban on defensive hand-checking

As opposed to George Mikan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who were so dominant on offense that the league had to respond just to make things fair for defenders, the NBA was facing the opposite dilemma in the late ’90s. Thanks in large part to the success of Michael Jordan, isolationist offensive schemes that centered around one player being watched by four others standing had become the norm by the mid ’90s, while motion offenses went the way of the dodo. This would continue unabated into the next millennium, with players like Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, and Allen Iverson carrying the isolationist torch. Meanwhile, defenses were playing a bruising style, discouraging skill players. Anyone who saw a Knicks-Heat slugfest in the late ’90s or early ’00s was not likely to embark on a lifetime of NBA fandom. Thus, the league gathered a blue ribbon committee in 2001 to explore new ideas. They came up with several innovations that chipped away at the game’s growing boredom, most importantly the elimination of hand-checking. The ability of perimeter defenders to use their hands on the body of the player they’re guarding had a long tradition in the NBA, and one of the biggest proponents of it in the ’90s was Harper, a hard-nosed point guard for the Mavericks and Knicks. He was especially known for being tough on Rockets guard Kenny Smith, notably in the 1994 NBA Finals where Harper harassed Smith so much that he even once shoved him into a scorer’s table. When the hand-checking rule was officially enacted, Smith – then a well-respected analyst for TNT – dubbed it the “Derek Harper on Kenny Smith Rule.” It was later shortened to “Derek Harper Rule” and that colloquial title is still used to this day. Though there was plenty of early dissent from traditionalists, the rule was ultimately a success, helping to usher in a new era of offensive frenzy that highlighted star play makers such as Steve Nash, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade.

7) Gilbert Arenas: limits amount other teams can offer to restricted free agents after rookie contract ends
8) Derrick Rose: increases amount teams can offer to their own restricted free agents after rookie contract ends, if certain criteria is met

Though provisions like the Bird Rule allowed the NBA to maintain a soft cap where the pretense of pure parity is maintained while exceptions were worked into the framework to serve other ends, the 1983 CBA still had other faults. In the 2005 renewal, one new element was the “Arenas Rule” named after Gilbert Arenas. Arenas was an unknown quantity when the Warriors drafted him in the second round in 2001 and signed him to a two-year deal. He had a breakout season in his second year, capped off by winning the Most Improved Player award. As a restricted free agent, he was offered a massive six-year, $65 million contract by the Wizards. The Warriors were already over the salary cap and therefore were only able to offer a mid-level exception in return, which would amount to about half the money Washington put on the table. Arenas bolted to the nation’s capital and Golden State was helpless to do anything about it. In response, the owners added a new exception to the CBA where players drafted in the second round that became restricted free agents after their second year (and therefore don’t qualify for the three-year Bird Rule) can only be offered a mid-level exception contract by other teams. This allowed the current team a better chance at retaining their rising star player. Though named after Arenas, the provision was also heavily inspired by Carlos Boozer bolting from Cleveland to Utah in 2004. It became somewhat quaint after its initiation, little used and little understood until Jeremy Lin became a free agent in 2012. The Rockets actually managed to creatively circumvent the Arenas Rule by offering Lin a “poison pill” contract, only mid-level exception in the first season to stay within the letter of the law, but heavily back-loaded to discourage the Knicks from matching.

When the CBA was renewed again to end the 2011 lockout, the “Derrick Rose Rule” was introduced. Somewhat of a cousin to the “Arenas Provision,” Rose’s namesake regulation went as follows: if a player’s rookie contract is expiring and he has either a) been an All-Star twice, b) been voted to the All-NBA team twice, or c) won MVP, then his new salary can take up 30% of the team’s total payroll, as opposed to 25%. Rose was the rule’s appellation by virtue of winning the 2011 MVP as age 22, surpassing Wes Unseld as the youngest ever recipient of the award. Kevin Durant was the first recipient of the Rose Rule, which was applied retroactively to the contract he signed with the Thunder in 2010. Other beneficiaries have included Blake Griffin, Paul George, and Damian Lillard, but the rule has drawn a increasing number of detractors over the years. The biggest issue is that provision allows All-Star voting, a fickle, fan-driven endeavor, to influence contract negotiations. This cost Anthony Davis in 2017, when his Rose Rule eligibility was negated because fans didn’t vote him into the 2016 All-Star Game.