Against the backdrop of all the hype that goes into sports marketing, a little thing like a change in the rules of the game might seem almost insignificant.
    But for the NBA the latest rule changes could be exactly what the league needs to reverse the decline in viewer interest.
   Last Thursday the league's board of governors removed the rules against illegal defenses.
   That means that for the first time in 50 years, or almost since the league began, NBA teams will be allowed to play what's known as a zone defense, in which defensive players guard areas of the court.  The existing rules require a man-to-man defense, in which the player with the ball attempts to get past a defensive player assigned to him.
   That still may not seem significant to most people.
   But it means that the NBA considers making the game more exciting for the fans an important enough priority to change one of its oldest and quirkiest rules.
    "I think it's a step in the right direction, and it changes some things in the strategy," says Dean Luplow, vice president and media director at Starcom Worldwide. "It's a nice indication that the NBA is taking a hard look at the game and maybe taking a back-to-the-basics approach."
   The rule change also means that the NBA is willing to think outside the box. 
   The zone defense is associated with lower scoring games and slower play, and allowing teams to use it seems almost counterintuitive for a sport already criticized for being too boring.
   Media folks tend to think that the new rule is a tradeoff. The game may become more exciting in the strategic sense, but it'll lose the big plays and one-on-one matchups that defined the NBA during its most recent heyday in the 1990s.
    "Most of the criticism that the NBA gets is that it's a superstar game and that there's no strategy involved," says Hadrian Shaw, sports analyst at Paul Kagan Associates. "But the NBA wants to develop superstars."
   "If [the NBA is] not happy with the product, then do it, do whatever it takes," says Shaw. "Right now, too many times you see players standing around. To get that out, you give up the scoring part. It all depends on the game you want to watch."
   And most media analysts think that what the audience really wants to watch is another Michael Jordan-style superstar.
   "Several changes will help, but the thing that will help the NBA the most is finding a new superstar," says Lynn Kahle, professor of marketing at the University of Oregon.
   Luplow agrees.
    "It's a star-driven league, and they're trying to develop some new stars," says Luplow. "And maybe these rule changes will help that. 
    "The core of the game is still the same, it’s still the same players, this is just to tweak on the defense."
    The advantage of the one-on-one game is that it tends to produce high-scoring games with exciting plays, like slam dunks, when the player with the ball breaks free.
    The disadvantage is that you really have only two players in play, the man with the ball and his defensive player. The remaining players on both teams stand on the other side of the court, doing nothing.
    In a zone defense, each defensive player guards a section of the court, or a zone. That means that one defensive player can effectively cover two offensive players at the same time. 
    That also means that it's much harder for the offense to score--and significantly harder to score close to the goal, as with the slam dunk.
     How that will look in the NBA is probably three players instead of just one around Shaquille O'Neal, making it more difficult for one of the Lakers' top scorers to even get the ball, much less score.
   At the same time, zone defense forces the offense to be more creative. So fans should see more movement and action on the television screen, even if the ball doesn't go up and down the court as much.
    "The idea that scoring baskets is the only way fans can enjoy basketball underestimates the intelligence of the fans," says Kahle. "They can enjoy the strategy. 
    "The other side of the zone type defense is that it forces more outside shooting. And with more outside shooting, there'll be more missed shots, and missed shots can be exciting."
    Also, by opening up the options available to coaches, the zone defense should provide for more unpredictability in the game. Fans won't always know what's going to happen when a certain player gets the ball. 
    "From a fan's point of view, it might drive some interest," says Shaw.
    "With the zone, big plays would be more rare. It'll put the emphasis back on shooters, which is a lost art in the NBA."