And-Ones: Foul Calls, New Ball, Mudiay, Acy

The NBA is pleased with the way its referees have handled the crackdown on foul calls on non-basketball moves so far this season, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s VP of referee development and training, said that the refs are still focused on allowing offensive players to have freedom of movement and will continue to seek the right balance of foul calls as the season progresses.

“There’ve been a few instances, nothing that’s raised to a significant level, where we would still want a defensive foul where it’s getting lumped into a non-basketball move,” McCutchen said, per Bontemps. “We’re in the middle of that adjustment period with the staff. We have staff calls at a higher cadence than we would when we’re not implementing something as significant as this, and we’re showing them examples so that we can adjust in real-time to meet the demands of the league.”

As Shams Charania of The Athletic relays (via Twitter), the NBA’s competition committee has also discussed the increase in “take” fouls on transition plays and has encouraged the league to office to consider tweaking the rules for those fouls. However, that’s unlikely to happen in the middle of the season, so it may have to wait until 2022/23.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

• The NBA is using a new basketball this season, having switched from Spalding to Wilson. Clippers star Paul George said on Monday night that the Wilson ball doesn’t have the “touch and softness” of the Spalding one (Twitter link via Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times) and NBPA president CJ McCollum said he’ll discuss the ball this week with players to get their input (Twitter link via Chris Mannix of SI.com). For what it’s worth, president of league operations Byron Spruell said on Tuesday that the NBA hasn’t gotten much feedback on the new ball (link via Tim Bontemps of ESPN), and Seth Partnow of The Athletic is skeptical it’s the reason for the early-season dip in offensive efficiency.
• Lithuanian team Zalgiris Kaunas has parted ways with former NBA lottery pick Emmanuel Mudiay, according to Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com (Twitter link). Sources tell Urbonas that Mudiay will likely continue playing in Europe — he’ll be eligible to sign with a new EuroLeague team next month.
• Former NBA big man Quincy Acy has signed with Olympiacos, the Greek team announced in a press release. Acy, who appeared in 337 NBA games from 2012-19 and has since played in China and Israel, agreed to a deal that runs through 2022/23.