I’m not a purist, far from it, but I still mind it when people start playing fast and loose with the ever-changing rules of this game. It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t even register with the brain when you see three steps before a layup, it’s like that’s how its always been and we should just be okay with it. Cradling the ball, the extra-long hesitation move, the spin-move where you switch your pivot foot, the hop-step after two steps, these are just becoming too common and too accepted to be ignored any further. I wouldn’t sound any horns if this was restricted to only traveling, fact is that the referees and the NBA have let the game morph into a watered-down copy of the original.
The Charge
Somebody please give me a definition of what constitutes an offensive foul. My understanding is that the defender needs to be “set” outside the circle well before the offensive player makes contact in an aggressive manner. If that’s not the definition, they need to change it to be that and enforce it like the Chinese do the one-child policy. There were three offensive fouls called against the Magic and Cavaliers in Game 2 when the offensive player was on his way to the rim and a defender snuck his way into the path and drew the charge. The offensive player was not out of control, reckless or even aggressive, he was simply making his way to the rim when somebody basically cut him off without giving him any chance to react. The “without any chance to react” part is what I have a problem with.
If a defender is going to “sacrifice” his body by coming into the offensive player’s path, the officials better consider that he’s done so after the offensive player’s momentum has committed him in a certain direction. It’s ridiculous to call a foul on a guy driving to the rim who is met with a player who realizes too late that he’s out of position and steps in whilst the guy with the ball is committed. Most of these charges are non-calls and wouldn’t have been called in the 80’s and 90’s. The worst is perhaps when the defender is contesting a drive by playing along the offensive player and falls backward to fake like he was in position. The official hasn’t seen any defensive contact but seems a man on the floor and is almost compelled to go the other way.
If the NBA just tightened up by replacing these charges with non-calls and calling the traveling/carrying, they’d even things out and make the game more competitive and enjoyable to watch.
The Make-Up Call
The most embarrassing occurrence of them all. This is like the official saying, “Hey c’mon, we’re trying to f**k both team equally, give us some credit”. No, you do not get credit for that. Maybe if you did a better job of disguising your pathetic way of “balancing” the scales instead of making up for your previous blown call by blowing another call ON THE VERY NEXT PLAY. The NBA needs to monitor make-up calls a lot more closely because as the old adage goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. My favorite is the back-to-back illegal screen calls, those are just classic.
Playing for the foul
Before you give me a whole lecture on how drawing the foul is an art let me tell you I’m not against the Turkoglu’s of the world who try that constantly on the perimeter. No, that’s okay, what’s not cool is when you “drive” to the rim, get cut ff, and then flail your limbs in the air like somebody hacked them off. First up, if somebody fouled you on the arms your arms wouldn’t go flying in the air, they’d stay where they were or even be a little lower. If your arms are going straight up it likely means the defender got all ball! Whenever somebody pulls these kinds of stunts they’re playing the officials rather than the game which is never fun.
Our own Chris Bosh is a great example. Whenever he attacks the rim he knows he’s going to get forced into a tough shot because of a seal-off but that doesn’t stop him trying to execute the same predictable move. He’s relying on the official to ignore the fact that he’s not in a position of advantage and hopefully buy the theory that he was “in the act of shooting” when he really was “in the act of salvaging whatever the hell that move was”. Note to referees: don’t buy this.
Too many timeouts
The game is too long. Actually, it’s not too long, it’s just that it could be shorter and more enjoyable. And we’d be spared two minute long Drag Me To Hell trailers. Here’s what I’m proposing: No matter what the time-out situation is leading up to the final 2:30, each team only gets 1 timeout from that point onwards. Deal with it. I just shaved twenty minutes off a game.
What’s up with flagrants?
Flagrant 1 and flagrant 2 fouls both result from “excessive contact”. The only difference is that the latter is called when the contact is “intentional”. I don’t have a problem with making those distinctions because all they’re trying to do is weed out malicious play which is important if you want to protect your players. My issue is with flagrant 1 which is sought by players and coaches too often for my liking. The good ‘ol “hard foul” seems to now fall in a gray area which announcers and even players debate and mull over. If a player is coming down the lane for a dunk and you angle him hard so that it’s hard body-on-body contact and he falls awkwardly, that’s not a flagrant, that’s just a statement that we’d rather you make free throws. I was watching the Bulls-Pistons game on NBA TV and I fully believe that if Bill Laimbeer played in this era he’d prefer to retire.
The three-second violation
Probably the most shouted out comment by players is “Three seconds!” and I can’t blame them. This is an out-dated rule which officials call on a person-by-person basis which is probably the right thing to do. I have no problem with Shaq backing you down for seven seconds in the paint. I have a problem with Shaq parking himself in the paint while he waits for his guards to give him the ball. Two very different things that both result in three-second violations, the latter should and the former shouldn’t.
When in doubt, swallow the whistle
If it’s a 50-50 call always give it to the defense. It’ll make for a more physical and intense game which simply can’t hurt. Sure, the points per game will probably drop but the idea that high scores mean entertaining basketball is just not true. While we’re on this topic, allow hand-checking anywhere on the court. This is just an extension of the of the rule passed about six years ago which allowed “brief contact” to be initiated by a defensive player as long as it didn’t “impede the progress of the player with the ball”.
Minor Things
- Technical fouls get you two free throws.
- Team that wins opening tip gets ball at the start of all quarters.
- Allow out-of-bounds screens.
- No matter who gets tied up before the jump-ball, anybody on the court can jump for it.
- Get rid that illegal-defense remnant that’s out there. Nobody understands it. Still.
Allow 1 and 1s
Now we’re talking pressure FTs.
And now some stuff about the players.
Waiting for no reason before fouling
This has been irking me for about a decade because it seems players have gotten dumber over that period. Here’s the situation: Your team is down 1 with 19 seconds left and the other team has the ball. Logic and reason says you go for the steal and if you don’t get it you try to fou as quickly as possible. Here’s what invariably ends up happening: Other team inbounds, your team tries the steal, doesn’t get it. Your team waits, waits and waits while the other team dribbles the ball to the front-court. The assistant coach is screaming at you. The head coach is too shocked to say anything. The fans are yelling “Foul!!” You finally foul. Time left on the clock: 8 seconds. WTF?
I spoke to Jack Armstrong a week or so ago and he said it best, “Players today are over-coached and under-taught”.
Using the foul to give
I understand that one doesn’t want to wait to the point where the other guy is shooting the ball before using your foul, but at the same time if you’re draining a paltry 2 out of 20 seconds off the clock, was it really worth it? You’re better off using that foul by playing aggressive defense on the perimeter, maybe you’ll end up getting a turnover.
Got more?
31 Raps
I totally agree with this article!
BTW. It’s also too obvious that the NBA is trying to make it a Cavs vs Lakers finals. The Cavs-Magic series could have been easily 3-0 if it weren’t for the refs. Notice how they call ticky-tack calls on both sides, the thing is, when they call those on cleveland it’s against their bench players i.e. joe smith,ben wallace etc., but on the Magic side they call it against their key players i.e. dwight howard..
Nuggets VS Magic for FINALS ! ! ! ! ! !
Playing tough defence means the stars will lose too often. Can’t happen.
Can’t be marketed. If Jordan and Lebron can’t stay close, there’s not chance for awe-inspiring moments. Basketball is a game for thrills and spills, not for toughness anymore. You can “be like Mike” but you can’t “be like Laimbeer”.
Dude;
No offense but who want’s to watch Laimbeer-like play? – hockey fans?
Laimbeer got the superstar treatment in a different way – like Bruce Bowen he got away with stuff that would have gotten regular players ejected.
Screw the Stern-bot – Nuggets / Magic finals!!!!
nba isn’t basketball ,it’s entertainment wwe vs nba no diffrence :)
Make the court larger…the average player size has ballooned far to much since the 70s and 80s. That is the reason they had to loosen perimeter defensive rules. Instead, make the court larger and allow good hard nosed perimeter defense.
that would actually be fun, larger court, larger paint area, further distance to the 3pt line.
The court does need to be larger, in width. More specifically, the space in the corners is too narrow and you see players stepping out of bounds on simple catches.
Yeah they should widen it a little.
awesome. too many ‘mainstream’ writers just ignore how pathetic the officiating in the nba really is.
re. the ‘charge’ call – they really need to take a page from the nhl & start calling tech’s on guys who blatantly flop. the problem, and anyone who’s played knows this, is that refs will NEVER call a charge unless the defender reacts by falling backward. even if the defender has attained the proper position & the offensive player comes barrelling into him, if the defender is braced (& big enough) & doesn’t ‘flop’ backward, it’ll either be a block or a no-call. it’s become engrained that the only way to successfully draw a charge is to flop, regardless of the level of contact made.
I think, regarding the charge rule, it is considered a charge if the defender has his torso set in the static position, regardless of whether his feet are set or not, prior to the offensive player starting his upward motion. In addition the defender needs to allow the offensive player to realistically land. This information was from a recent SI.com article that I had read.
Great article – many strong arguments – crystal clear that refereeing is too subjective in many areas (charges, touch fouls, travels, etc.)
However there’s a premise that needs to be evaluated before getting too far into how to fix this. The premise is that the playoffs should be different than the regular season – and I fundamentally disagree. A foul is a foul playoffs or not. SHould be no differnce in how you call the last play of the game in November versus May. The refs can’t handle one set of rules – asking them to handle two different approaches is impossible. I’d rather see the playoffs refereed like the regular season, but if you want to ref the regular season like the play-offs then I have to agree with that too. Just pick one.
Other ideaas… retire the refs at 50 – I’m tired of 90 year old men controlling a game they don’t even seem to understand.
…get rid of the double/triple standard – rookies vs. experienced vs. superstars all have different thresholds for fouling / getting fouled. Bruce Bowen in his prime could get away with anything short of murder cause he’s a “good” defender
…make the season shorter so that there are fewer meaningless games.
Hahaha that’s a great idea about the refs. They are definitely too old. I still don’t understand how guys like Dick Bavetta (69) and Bennett Salvatore (59) are expected to make calls in real life at game speed. Any old person I know would probably have a seizure in that situation. So would I for god’s sake. I know experience is always a big deal, but, for example, I would much rather have Muhammed Ali circa 1969 as a personal bodyguard, than Muhammed Ali circa 2009.
I definitely see what you mean about the playoffs and regular season being seen as “a totally different ballgame”, but I kinda disagree. If I were the Head of All NBA Refs I would definitely want to call less tick-tack fouls in the playoffs just because it brings out hate from every single player on each team. Every player sees eachother every other day in high pressure situations, and allowing more contact would bring out the beasts in your typical Greg Oden’s, making the game much more fun to watch. Unfortunatly, the most recent playoffs are the exact opposite of this. But with calls like charges and flagrants, there should be some sort of standard, playoffs or not.
IMO, the only current “officiating problems” from this list that need to be addressed by the league are the blatant Traveling Violations which are not being called at present and a reduction in the overall number of Technical Fouls which are being assessed today for “inappropriate player responses to an official’s made/not made call”, in the first place. The rest of the game is in good shape and just needs to be officiated according to the existing Rule Book.
agreed, it was shocking to see pietrus get called for those travels, not because he traveled, but because they actually called it.
The 1 and 1 is a great, great idea. Didn’t they used to have it back in the early 80s?
I wouldn’t be completely surprised if a lot of the late-game stoppages are for the benefit of the TV networks – in a close game, people are going to remain glued to the set. And if there’s a lot of stops, there’s a pretty good crowd that will have to sit through commercials. You’ll notice in a blowout, there’s far less ads as the game progresses.
As for what I miss? Well, besides John Tesh’s amazing theme, how about a mid-90s Hannah Storm?
Hey bring back the 3 to make 2 as well, that would cut down the “hack-a-….”
Great article.
I particularly liked your comment about the timeouts in the last 2 minutes. As a huge basketball fan with a group of puckhead friends, this is always the item that gets pointed out as an annoyance to casual fans. The timeouts and fouls at the end of the game totally kill the flow of a game that is normally so fluid for 90% of the game. For those who enjoy the “chess match” element, maybe this is heresy, but I honestly think it would be better for the game on the whole to implement something like what you’re suggesting.
I am one of the few who misses the 90’s way of playing. If Jordan was in his prime right now I swear he would be averaging at least 40 to 45 points a game with the added FT he would be taking. The NBA is way too soft nowadays. You look at someone the wrong way and it’s a flagrant (A little over the top there but not to far off). I believe in the hard foul. I believe in denying the paint with aggressive play. I enjoyed it when the hand check rules were unheard of. Yesterday’s superstars would be today’s basketball gods if they were playing in this system.
The NBA has turned into a sideshow not a hard nose competitive league.
LeBron knocked a ball out of the cylinder and it was called a block. Replay verified it was over the cylinder. Had that been Dwight Howard, it would have been a goaltend. Dwight Howard makes a beautiful clean block on a LeBron 3, replays verified. Had that been LeBron, they would have called it a block. Charges and offensive fouls are not being called. David Stern markets LeBron for the NBA–that is why LeBron gets the calls.
If not true, they need to initiate one challenge per game. Or, add two refs on the floor to specifically watch for 3 second violations and offensive fouls. Five matchups on the floor, so there should be 5 refs. Something. Anything. The NBA is a cartoon with this lousy reffing.
Totally true!
Great Post. It’s the Same thing with the NHL. I agree I miss the old style of game. Tough physical defense, rivalries, hand checking, charasmatic players, brilliant coaching, brilliant centers, great guards/forwards etc.
Lebron cannot be compared to Michael I’m sorry. Even if he wins 6+ championships I still take Jordan 100/100 times. The level of ball today compared to the 80’s and 90’s is to big a gap.
Players today are playing in an easy era of ball. Lets see Lebron win championships and have to face Jordan, Rodman, Pippen, Malone, Stockton, Payton, Hakeem, Ewing, Laimbeer, Dumars, Johnston, Barkley, Isiah, Mourning, Bird, Mc Hale, Prime Shaq, Hardaway, etc.
Jordan won 6 rings eliminating all those guys at one point or another.
I went off subject but Im trying to show that the rules today make players better then they really are, I think.
Transport the stars today and bring them back 15 years and I don’t think they are stars any longer.
Really good post. I am sure any avid basketball fan is continually frustrated with certain elements of the way that the game is called. I know there are a multitude of things that get me angry at a basketball game.
The timeout issue you brought up is plain dumb on the NBA’s behalf in my opinion. The full quota of timeouts for both teams is 16 (6 full and 2 20s per team), which means a timeout causes the game clock to stop at an average of every 3 minutes if all timeouts are used. One Timeout Every Three Minutes!!! Currently the NBA allows teams to use no more than 3 TOs in the 4th and 2 in the last 2 minutes (20 second timeouts don’t count in the 2 TOs in last 2 minute quota, so the clock can stop 6 times in the last 2 minutes of game time, kill me). Would it ruin the NBA to just reduce the amount of timeouts alloted to teams just to see what happens? 4 full and 2 20s per team…only one timeout can be used in final 2 minutes and only 2 can be used in the 4th quarter. It just seems so simple. Sports leagues should never lose sight of the fact that they produce an entertainment product. Reducing the number of timeouts could attract more fans and would hardly mess with the integrity of the sport.
On another note, I have to say that playing for the foul is by far the worst thing in the NBA. Offensive players have developed their game to use the foul to their advantage, exactly the way Arsenalist described what Chris Bosh does 10 times a game. The NBA has lost sight of the true purpose behind the foul, to protect the player making an offensive play. Now players have ‘foul’ moves, where they execute the same bullshit move every game because they know they will get the foul call, but have no chance of making the actual shot. How is that good for the NBA? It pads stats, I guess that is good for the NBA…scoring = superstars = $$$. But it stops the clock unnecessarily, so the player can shoot his free throws. The last time I checked there wasn’t a professional free throw shooting league, or ‘21′ league, and the reason these leagues don’t exist is because they would be boring no one would watch them.
The worst part by far about playing for the foul is how announcers legitimize it as an actual skill worth striving for. Bosh may do his bullshit foul move 10 times a game, but Hell, he has ‘Earned Those Fouls’, through years of working the refs with bullshit move + complain x repeat until you get respect. Bargs on the other hand has developed a reputation as being a ‘Three Point Shooter’ and ‘Soft Player’, so he rarely gets the call, even if his arms are ever ripped off JAX style while driving to the net…
We are in an endless loop of players doing ‘foul’ moves and complaining to the refs more than the next guy so they get the respect/calls instead of the other guy, and in the world of the NBA, this process takes several seasons for a player to accomplish…a true badge of honor amongst his peers, I’m sure.
I’d love to see to the timeouts reduced …. but too many people are getting paid, so I can’t see it happening. Absolutely love it if it did happen.
My biggest gripe with the NBA is the number of stoppages and length of stoppages. Ruins the rhythm of the game, and basketball is a rhythm sport.
Great article, I totally agree, especially with the travelling and charging rules.
I’ve never seen one player get away with as many travels as Lebron James.
As a fairweather basketball fan, the timeouts really kill me. Way too fucking many of ‘em.
During all the commercial time outs, I usually surf the other channels to find something interesting for a couple of minutes … works for me.
Perhaps team timeouts can be reduced to 1 minute and forget the silly 20 second time out. If the coach wants to burn two timeouts, that’s fine.
OT … Now that the Cavs are down 3-1 to the Magic … if Bosh were playing for the Cavs would it make a difference for them ????
Cavs don’t need Bosh. They’ve got the ultimate Franchise player who can will teams to championships all on his own.
Allow me to add a few.
1. Timeouts should not be allowed to be called unless you have full control of the ball and you are uncontested. It shouldn’t be used to bail the offense out because he is trapped by the opponent, or scrambling on the floor or can’t get the ball inbound within 5 seconds. The defence deserves the ball in all those cases.
2. Here’s something that is even more radical. Picture this, the home team is pressing, fastbreaking and making a run, momentum is building, the crowd goes wild, the game is most entertaining…what happens next? The other team calls a timeout and all can be lost. Why not eliminate timeouts by teams altogether? Defense and not timeouts should be the thing that stops an offense. (all timeouts should be by officials for commercial purposes)
3. Get rid of the “you have to earn the referee’s respect” to get a foul called. The corollary is the “star treatment” A foul is a foul. This isn’t figure skating judging.
Why can’t anyone say it like it is. These games are fixed. The Magic Cavs series is the best evidence there is to date. The League is fixing games and they are doing it without remorse. It just shows how much better the Magic really are that they can overcome both the Cavs and the Referees.