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The National Basketball Association has enacted several significant rules changes that will go into effect for the upcoming 2006-07 season. These are official:

Playoff Seeding:

- The first four seeds in each conference will continue to be given to the three division winners and the team with the next best regular season record, but these four teams will now be seeded in order of their regular season records. Among other things, this change will ensure that the two teams with the best records in the conference will not meet earlier than the Conference Finals.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: I like it. Division-winners are still rewarded, but the playoff seedings will be more fair.

Shortening Timeouts:

- If a team has two 60 second timeouts left in the last two minutes of regulation or in overtime, one of the two timeouts will be shortened to a 20 second timeout.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: I like it. The final minutes of close games take too long. This will speed things up a little. Not a lot, but every little bit helps.

- Instead of having three 60 second timeouts in overtime, teams will have two 60's and one 20 second timeout. Teams will no longer be permitted to carry over a 20 second timeout from regulation into overtime.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: I like it. Same as above.

Increase in Playoff Roster Size:

- Playoff roster size will be expanded from 13 to 15 players, with each team designating 12 active players and up to three inactive players prior to each game.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: I like it. Teams can have 15 eligible players all season. Might as well let them have the same thing in the playoffs.

“Our owners are intent on making the playoff seeding more fair for all teams going forward and in quickening the pace of the end of games,” said Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations. “The Board also thought it made sense to allow teams to utilize the same 15-man roster in the playoffs that they use during the regular season.”

The rules changes were recommended by the Rules and Competition Committee at its annual meeting in June, and approved this week by a vote of the Board of Governors.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: The manner in which hand-checking (and "touch" fouls) get called needs to be changed, but that sort of thing isn't a "rule" change. But hopefully we see less touch fouls in the league next season.

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