Jayda Evans says fans are grumbling "about new league rules regarding defense." Ivan Carter at WaPo reports that the WNBA will "introduce a rule change that could open up the court and lead to more scoring."

Note, however, as the official release stated yesterday, that isn't actually a "new rule," but rather a change in the way an existing rule is enforced.

The rules say, as they have always said, that a player shall not impede the progress of an opponent. The rules say, as they have always said, that a defender may not initiate contact with her opponent unless the contact is "incidental" because it does not affect the opponent's "speed, quickness, balance, and/or rhythm." (There is an exception for the forearm-on-the-back technique in the post.)

The NBA and the WNBA haven't passed any new rules regarding handchecking. They've just told refs to enforce the existing rule the way it was written.