Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE

The NBA Board of Governors had their annual summer meeting yesterday and approved some changes to the use of instant replay and also into advertising on jerseys.

NBA commissioner David Stern talked with the media following the meeting and said the league would be looking o add possibly $100 million in revenue by adding small advertising patches to uniforms beginning in the 2013-14 season.

The NBA would model itself after European soccer teams by doing this. This is something that was probably inevitable with the NBA especially because they can earn so much money implementing it.

The NBA has also altered some of its rules regarding the use of instant replay. Officials can now at any point in the game go to replay to review every flagrant foul to determine if it was a Flagrant 1 or 2.

This is a good move because every potential flagrant deserves to immediately be reviewed by video. Many times hard fouls will look worse in real time than on video and vice versa.

Officials can also now use replay in the final two minutes of regulation or in overtime to review if a player was in the restricted area when attempting to take a charge. Officials can now also review goaltending calls at this time.

Charging calls in general are some of the most frustrating calls made in the NBA. Any attempt to improve the accuracy of these calls has to be a good thing for the league though.

The competition committee is set to meet in September to look at flopping and dealing with fouls away from the ball.

Addressing flopping is a very good idea for the league. It will be interesting to see how they come up with a way to reduce it though.

Flopping has been a big talking point this year in the NBA and particularly in the playoffs.

Serge Ibaka was asked about flopping and who the biggest floppers were in the NBA Finals. He initially mentioned Mario Chalmers and Derek Fisher casually. Then when Shane Battier’s name was brought up he called him the biggest flopper of them all.

With players like Battier and Fisher, flopping could play a big role in the NBA Finals. Even LeBron, Wade, Durant and Harden do their fair share of flopping trying to get calls.

It is becoming a big deal though even for NBA commissioner David Stern.

“Flopping almost doesn’t do it justice,” Stern said Tuesday. “Trickery. Deceit designed to cause the game to be decided other than on its merits. We’ll be looking at that.

“We’ll be looking at a number of things that make it easier for us to say to our fans what we all know to be true: Our referees want to get everything right.”

The goal with flopping and tweaking officiating in anyway should be to get the referees out of the spotlight in as much as possible. The worst thing about watching a game is feeling that the referees affected the outcome afterwards.

Flopping puts referees in the limelight. There won’t be a perfect fix to immediately get rid of flopping but the fact that Stern is talking about it is a good sign for the NBA.

Jim Rome interviewed NBA commissioner David Stern on his radio show today and began the interview by asking Stern if the NBA Draft Lottery was fixed.

Stern answered by saying “No” and then asked Rome “Do you still beat your wife?” Stern didn’t ask this based on any history of Rome beating his wife but to suggest that it is just as ridiculous a question as the one Rome asked.

The question by Rome can be rationalized as fair but you know that Stern isn’t going to say anything other than “No” and he did that and then became aggravated that it was even being asked. The question worked to get a reaction from Stern.

I get what Rome was doing and I understand talking about the New Orleans Hornets winning the NBA Draft Lottery with Stern because that is interesting to hear what he would have to say.

I guess the question accomplished something because now everyone is talking about it.

They went back and forth a little bit after that question but it was awkward the entire time. Stern even took a dig at Rome at the end saying he now had to go because he had someone important to call and that was Stephen A. Smith.