The RAG consists of the members of FIBA, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and National Basketball Association (NBA) who meet regularly to discuss the status of the rules and examine proposals for rule changes.

A workshop focused on analysis of the rules, differences between the NBA, NCAA) and FIBA rules and new proposals for FIBA rules changes.

"It's always beneficial to discuss the practical application of the rules, to deepen the understanding of the concepts behind them and to learn from each other," Lubomir Kotleba, chairman of the RAG and member of the FIBA Technical Commission, said. 

"Although there will always be differences among our competitions, we are all gradually moving towards unifying the basketball rules worldwide."

As a part of the workshop, the RAG visited the NBA Replay Center to familiarise its members with the NBA instant replay review protocol and to discuss the NBA and FIBA Instant Replay rules application in detail.

Joe Borgia, NBA Senior vice-president of replay and referee operations, said: "Our organisations are constantly analysing basketball games from various angles: competition, basketball strategy, marketing, communications, TV, officiating, rules, etc.

"The referee operations are naturally affected by this.

"Our departments have to react and adjust dynamically.

"We are happy to share our knowledge as well as to hear from others."

The RAG processed around 40 proposals for rules changes submitted to FIBA.

They selected the most relevant and important proposals due to be presented to the FIBA Technical Commission for further approval process.

The second part of the meeting was dedicated to the continued development of the referee performance evaluation concept.

Joining the RAG at this stage were experts Goran Radonjic, FIBA Technical Commission member, Roberto Chiari, FIBA referee instructor and FIBA referee managers of the regional offices.

"We started working on this project in 2016 and laid a good foundation, on which we are building right now," said Carl Jungebrand, FIBA head of refereeing.

"The aim of the project is to create a transparent global referee evaluation system, which allows for the monitoring of FIBA referees' performances against pre-defined concrete criteria in main FIBA Competitions in the future."

During the workshop, the focus was on finalising the assessment criteria for the performance of referees.

It has been decided that the updated referee performance evaluation system will be tested again in more than 500 international games in 2018 before its final launch.