Ice Cube has taken a shot at the NBA for being “five years behind the curve” over a potential change in rules.
The NBA is reportedly looking at implementing a target score for overtime games to reduce the amount of minutes players are on the court and stop broadcasts going over the alotted time.
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But the N.W.A legend — who runs his own three-on-three basketball league, BIG3 — pointed out the rule has been a part of his league for years.
“The NBA could reportedly implement a target score for overtime games, per @EricPincus,” NBACentral‘s original tweet read.
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“‘That would prevent overlong broadcasts and overloading player minutes, like Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard’s playing 46 minutes in a double-overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings on Friday.'”
Ice Cube responded: “Adam Silver is 5 years behind the curve. @thebig3 been on a target score since 2017.”
Adam Silver is 5 years behind the curve. @thebig3 been on a target score since 2017. https://t.co/QNgz7XYMpu
— Ice Cube (@icecube) February 28, 2023
This isn’t the first time Ice Cube has taken a dig at the NBA. In October, the rapper/actor accused the league, along with ESPN, of attempting to “destroy” BIG3.
“Appreciate you @DaTrillStak5,” he said in response to former NBA champion Stephen Jackson showing support to BIG3. “We definitely need everybody’s support. The @nba and @espn are doing everything in their powers to ignore or destroy @thebig3.”
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Ice Cube previously called out the NBA in 2020 when he believed the league had stolen from his camp when they changed the format of the All-Star Game.
“The NBA hasn’t been the nicest to the BIG3,” he told Basketball News. “Of course, publicly, they say all the right words. But we know privately, there’s things done behind the scenes [with] sponsors, broadcasters, blah blah blah… It did tarnish my fandom a bit.”
On the other hand, Ice Cube credited FOX and CBS for helping the rise of BIG3 in 2021.
“I think it’s been very essential in our climb,” he told VIBE. “We were on FOX our first two years, but some of the games were tape-delayed, so we would play on Sunday and they’d play ’em on Monday night.
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“The second year, we went live on a few games but then we went to CBS and we were live from day one in 2019. Then we had the break. We were supposed to be on CBS in 2022, so now we’re back in 2021.”
He added: “It’s been great [and] high-profile for the league. Some of the games that weren’t on CBS were on Triller, FiteTV, so that platform has been great, too. We believe that it’s necessary to continue to [raise] the profile [of] the league to be very high on CBS.”
