NBA is making rules almost meaningless - traveling

[Covert Rain]

I don't know that they are the worst but I do believe they do the worst job of the big 3 US sports (I don't know much about soccer). And I think the league has helped create the ridiculous refereeing we've been seeing. When the players are allowed to continue trying to dupe the refs into making bad calls and when the coaches are allowed to continue to try and manipulate the refs, their job becomes almost impossible. Until the league wises up and does something about the constant complaining from players and refs and places huge consequences on "acting", this will continue to get worse because the players continue to get even better at duping the refs.

I think they are the worst but you are also right they have the toughest job of all the sports. Honestly, they simply cannot possibly cover all the players and the speeds the game is played and even come close to doing the job the way it should be done. Plus there is the garbage you mentioned above including the "unwritten" rules we have all seen play out when it comes to rookies verses veterans for example.

 

[elindholm]

At any rate, in this game in particular, the Jazz have no one to blame but themselves. The Rockets were handing them the game and they refused to make layups and free throws. I get that they are upset about the travelling, but those two points - even at that time - did not decide the game.

Oh god, not this argument again. That's like saying that if you spot one team a 4-0 lead before tipoff, the other team has nothing to complain about if they end up losing by 2, because they had ways to make up the deficit along the way.

 

[Covert Rain]

Oh god, not this argument again. That's like saying that if you spot one team a 4-0 lead before tipoff, the other team has nothing to complain about if they end up losing by 2, because they had ways to make up the deficit along the way.

It's not like that at all. Because nobody gave away points. You can't simply erase mistakes through the course of a game, pretend like the other team didn't score because of it then cry when you lose on a bad call.

Does that mean you can't bitch and complain about the horrible call? No, you should still raise hell about the bad call but they play for 48 Minutes...not the 10 seconds it took to make that one bad call.

 

[ArizonaSportsFan]

You bet. It is not a zero sum game. Each team does not get equal turns. The calls in the Jazz favor made as much difference as those going against. Early or late it is still two points.

 

[BC867]

Not sticking up for the refs, I would expect that, if it were within the last two minutes of the game, they would get together and assure they made the right call and look at a replay, if need be. Whether the call went in favor of the home or visiting team.

 

[Russ Smith]

I was going to start the same thread for a different play but yeah the harden one was insane, he took 6 steps.

I watched the last 10 minutes of Nets and Lakers on NBAtv last night. The Nets announcers were doing the game. Nets up 6 LeBron makes his unreal shot of the night a stepback corner 3 behind the glass to cut it to 3, with 17 seconds left. The Lakers on the inbounds intentionally leave Hollis jefferson open they want him to shoot the FT's. He catches the ball and walks forward 2 steps. Lonzo and Hart are sprinting up to foul him, so everyone knows it's intentional they let him catch the ball so they could foul, then RHJ takes 2 more steps, no walk called, Lonzo fouls him he fouls out. RHJ splits the FT's up 4, airball by Lebron, they foul RHJ again he splits them win by 5.

The Nets announcers immediately pointed out how lucky they were the walk wasn't called, what made it odd is nobody was really arguing, It was a 3 point game, LeBron had just hit a tough 3, Lonzo had made 5 in the game 2 in the quarter, if they call the walk the Lakers at least get a chance(of course the Nets probably foul) but it was like both teams knew they're not calling the walk the game isn't supposed to go to OT.

The only thing I came up with is the refs knew the Lakers were fouling intentionally, and sort of figured we're not going to call a guy for walking when there's no intent to actually guard him just foul him, he took those steps to gather himself before getting fouled? It was really weird though it was like the Lakers just accepted it and didn't argue.

The game last week where Harden had a triple double, 50 10 and 11 against the Lakers and he just took over late in the game. Aside from a couple of long 3's he got I think 2 fouls on blatant flops, and there was another one where he dribbled to the corner, the screener pushed his man into Harden who then flailed and got 3 shots on a foul on hart. It wasn't even debatable, the screener just hipchecked hart into Harden and they called the foul on Hart. Hart argued but again it's like there's this unwritten rule, Harden is a superstar so that's a foul on Hart.

He had an absolutely amazing game and yet my takeaway was I don't like watching him fall down on every shot.

 

[Russ Smith]

High school does a good job of not allowing players to talk back to refs. Now high school players in AAU for example do give the refs crap about calls. Then it stems from there on up.

IMO it came from the influx of Euros and that came from soccer. Anybody that watches international soccer has seen a guy go down like he took a bullet to the head, get the ref to call a penalty, and then pop up ready to go. You see players get taken off on stretchers and the replay shows they were untouched. That jumped from soccer to Euro basketball and then we had guys like Ginobili, a great player, come into the NBA and do it. NBA refs fell for it, so a generation of NBA guys came up seeing it and some of them copied it.

I saw Durant do the sweep through to get a foul on Harden in the playoffs last year and Harden was arguing and I'm thinking are you serious, that's one of your pet plays, you can't have it both ways.

The refs need to take some of that back but again you have the problem of how much control players have because of the money.

 

[Russ Smith]

Semi-related, I saw this yesterday. It lists the leagues best scorers minus FT's. I was curious where Harden would fall because he's most often mentioned as someone who sort of works the system to his favor but he'd be the #2 scorer in the league without foul shots included.

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I mentioned this before and I still don't think I believe him but Curry says the reason he's falling down so often on 3's now is not to get the calls but because he got tired of players going into his legs on the shot so he kicks the leg out and falls back to create a "safe space" between him and the defender. That's partly true with his ankle issues you can see him getting nervous when players get too close to his legs on shots. But I think it's more a he saw other guys like harden getting all these free throws by falling down and just started to do it himself.

 

[Russ Smith]

The thing on that play again my pet peeve, I understand refs missing plays off the ball, but he has the damn ball, the entire arena knows harden is going 1 on 1 there and is going to try and draw a foul. there is just not any excuse for missing the walk the ref has to be watching the ball there.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

It's not like that at all. Because nobody gave away points. You can't simply erase mistakes through the course of a game, pretend like the other team didn't score because of it then cry when you lose on a bad call.

Does that mean you can't bitch and complain about the horrible call? No, you should still raise hell about the bad call but they play for 48 Minutes...not the 10 seconds it took to make that one bad call.

I don't think the issue is as simple as "one missed call". The issue more than anything else is that it was egregious and the ref was looking directly at the play like 6' away. Did he get something in his eye at that very moment or something? That's about the only valid excuse for missing that call.

 

[Hoop Head]

The thing on that play again my pet peeve, I understand refs missing plays off the ball, but he has the damn ball, the entire arena knows harden is going 1 on 1 there and is going to try and draw a foul. there is just not any excuse for missing the walk the ref has to be watching the ball there.

This bothers me a lot. Everyone knows Harden, more than anyone else, initiates contact constantly to get a call but it seems like refs aren't aware or don't care. Since the 2012-13 season, Harden has more FT attempts than any other player in the league by a large margin. He has 4055, #2 is Westbrook with 2840. That is up through the end of last season. The link I found that at had it up through last season and I didn't feel like sorting it again to get an accurate number up to today but clearly that says something about how refs call fouls against Harden. To lead the #2 on the list by that many is almost unreal.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

This bothers me a lot. Everyone knows Harden, more than anyone else, initiates contact constantly to get a call but it seems like refs aren't aware or don't care. Since the 2012-13 season, Harden has more FT attempts than any other player in the league by a large margin. He has 4055, #2 is Westbrook with 2840. That is up through the end of last season. The link I found that at had it up through last season and I didn't feel like sorting it again to get an accurate number up to today but clearly that says something about how refs call fouls against Harden. To lead the #2 on the list by that many is almost unreal.

Wow that’s crazy. You’d think the refs would at least have enough self-esteem to say, “sheesh he’s just really duped us. I’m not gonna be his patsy.” Unless they’ve accepted they are essentially his Washington generals and they are okay being made to look stupid.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

It would be fascinating to see one entire game played by the literal rules. I know we would have an avalanche of whistles. But it would be so interesting to (a) see just how whiny the players would be; and (b) which players could adapt to actually play basketball; and (c) if such a change would substantially alter the outcome of games.

 

[Mainstreet]

If the offensive player initiates contact I don't think it should be a foul. I think the NBA should move away from this. This should lessen the parade to the free throw line.

 

[Mainstreet]

It would be fascinating to see one entire game played by the literal rules. I know we would have an avalanche of whistles. But it would be so interesting to (a) see just how whiny the players would be; and (b) which players could adapt to actually play basketball; and (c) if such a change would substantially alter the outcome of games.

This is a novel idea. Wouldn't it be great. No more special treatment of stars.

 

[AzStevenCal]

It would be fascinating to see one entire game played by the literal rules. I know we would have an avalanche of whistles. But it would be so interesting to (a) see just how whiny the players would be; and (b) which players could adapt to actually play basketball; and (c) if such a change would substantially alter the outcome of games.

We'll never see it but the Harden foul situation you were previously talking about is in large part due to the refs trying to pay strict attention to the rules. As I've heard it explained by Tim Legler, the league, in an effort to stop the old slide your body underneath the shooter trick put special emphasis on this maneuver. They are instructed to pay close attention to where the shooter comes down and if a defender is occupying that space, it's a defensive foul. Well, Harden has perfected that fall back 3 where as he shoots he moves his lower body forward so that it will come down where the defender is and that leads to all these foul calls. If he was just kicking his legs out, he'd only get away with it occasionally but because he's pushing his entire lower body forward, the refs have no choice but to give him the call.

 

[gimpy]

I don't think the ref's "missed" that travel. They blatantly ignored it.

Rules are intended to be applied to everyone, but, there are the chosen few that they are ignored for.

 

[95pro]

It would be fascinating to see one entire game played by the literal rules. I know we would have an avalanche of whistles. But it would be so interesting to (a) see just how whiny the players would be; and (b) which players could adapt to actually play basketball; and (c) if such a change would substantially alter the outcome of games.

We'd actually win against LeBron and Harden.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I don't think the ref's "missed" that travel. They blatantly ignored it.

Rules are intended to be applied to everyone, but, there are the chosen few that they are ignored for.

I really doubt it. Missing that call is a black mark for that ref and could cost him money, postseason work and ultimately, his job. I think it's simply a case of brain lock, the ref was so focused on just one thing that he missed the forest for the trees. There's no doubt that refs favor the stars but that one was just too unreal for it to be intentional IMO.

 

[BC867]

It is interesting seeing an MLB baseball player charging an umpire vs. an NBA player doing the same to a ref.

A baseball player knows that he is on a short leash before being ejected. Even a dirty look could do it.

Basketball players knows they can harass the refs on every play unless they curse or personally insult them.

It would make watching the game more fun if the NBA could switch to the MLB concept.

No more challenging the ref on every close play (offense or defense) in order to get a call the next time.

You argue, you get tossed. In the short term, good players would be out of the game. In time, watching
a basketball game would be about skill, rather than watching "lawyers" on the court argue every case.

Hey, maybe that explains it. Basketball is played on a "court". OK, let's start calling it a basketball field.

 

[Raindog]

It would be fascinating to see one entire game played by the literal rules. I know we would have an avalanche of whistles. But it would be so interesting to (a) see just how whiny the players would be; and (b) which players could adapt to actually play basketball; and (c) if such a change would substantially alter the outcome of games.

I think you would have to go watch some NBA "Classic" games from the 1970s/1980s to see the last time NBA officials more or less tried to call the games consistently within the actual rules. And hey, guess what? The games (IMO) were a lot more fun to watch back then, even if the players weren't nearly the athletes they are now.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I think you would have to go watch some NBA "Classic" games from the 1970s/1980s to see the last time NBA officials more or less tried to call the games consistently within the actual rules. And hey, guess what? The games (IMO) were a lot more fun to watch back then, even if the players weren't nearly the athletes they are now.

They were more fun and the refs did do a better job even though there only 2 refs back then (2 refs per game, not overall). The athleticism and overall court speed has something to do with the decline of refereeing along with Stern's decision to market the superstars instead of the game. But all that said, it wasn't perfect even back then. I can still remember screaming and yelling at my TV when guys like Lionel Hollins would freely manhandle Paul Westphal.

 

[Raindog]

I agree, Steven. I do think that when the refs did call things one-sided back then, it was more along the lines of favoring the home team over the visitors, rather than necessarily favoring star players.

And yeah, I think Stern largely ruined the sport with his marketing tactics. I understand that the general opinion is that he made the league more "popular" as a commodity, but it was at the cost of diminishing the competitive quality of it... ergo, why something like ten franchises have won all the championships over the last forty or so years.

 

[95pro]

Stern saw Jordan and milked it from there on.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I agree, Steven. I do think that when the refs did call things one-sided back then, it was more along the lines of favoring the home team over the visitors, rather than necessarily favoring star players.

And yeah, I think Stern largely ruined the sport with his marketing tactics. I understand that the general opinion is that he made the league more "popular" as a commodity, but it was at the cost of diminishing the competitive quality of it... ergo, why something like ten franchises have won all the championships over the last forty or so years.

I think he went too far but IMO he did save the league. Remember having to stay up until after the prime time shows ended just so you could catch that night's tape delayed playoff game? And what did we get for basketball on the weekends, one game most of the time if we were lucky? The sport was dying and he found a way to turn it around, I just wish he hadn't taken the hero worship marketing approach to such extremes.