[Thinking Basketball] NBA offenses are out of control
It’s stuff like this that makes it so hard to contextualize the insane stats we’re seeing in today’s game. Like this vid highlighted, those long drives are pretty much only possible if you are actually traveling. That in itself gives the offense a huge advantage and it’s a big reason why NBA players routinely look like fools for a few games whenever they play in FIBA.
And let’s not get started on all the things that should be called offensive fouls!
I’ll never stop saying the nba should just adopt FIBA rules and cut this nonsense
The rules are almost identical they are just not called in the NBA
FIBA has the gather step (zero step) and a bunch of other wacky shit added to be more like the nba
They need to bring in FIBA refs though because this group ain’t gonna call shit
Its not the refs its how the league wants the rules interpreted. If they told the refs to, we could return to 80s style calls overnight. But the NBA wants high scoring and flashy offenses, so this is what we get.
To be fair when nobody can hit a shot it makes for a very poor viewing experience. The rules favoring the offense leads to tons of highlight play opportunities which Silver admitted is a priority. And even then teams like you guys can still suffocate other teams. Imagine if they made the rules lean more in favor of the defense.
Nobody wants to see both teams shoot under 45% from the field in a meaningless regular season game. If it was a playoff game with stuff on the line then it would be different because people would be invested in the outcome.
I still remember when the Pacers played the Celtics in the playoffs in 2018. It was probably one of the worst games I’d ever seen at that point. I’m pretty sure both teams entered the 4th with around 50 points.
This is an excellent comment & should explain to everybody why everything gets to start getting called differently after the all star break & yet again for the playoffs. The league knows what it’s doing.
Nah that’s called defense. I get excited when players freak out cuz wemby is there.
Idk, having actually played basketball, I enjoyed playing defense as well.
Shutting down an opponent or making their shots difficult or not allowing them the ball always felt great. And that’s beyond steals and blocks.
I guess maybe people that haven’t played can’t appreciate defense, or maybe the younger generation doesn’t care about it. Defense is literally half the game tho.
And then just to you, would you rather teams score on you and you don’t win a chip, or they can’t score cuz you’re playing good defense and you win.
Additionally, when the score is lower every shot matters. Every score is important and feels better.
When the score is 130 to 120 then the scores don’t matter as much. It’s like bring in the ball fast and get another score.
And even then teams like you guys can still suffocate other teams.
OKC has an elite defense and still allows 106 ppg. Back in the day that would put you at the bottom of the league. Crazy how things have changed.
Exactly. That’s why all the bestest most skilled era evaaaa stuff is a joke. And why it’s honestly hard for me to compare what these players are doing to the past because the rules are like night and day. I hate that Lukas 35 9 and 9 has to be looked at with Jordan’s 32 8 and 8 because that was truly remarkable. And it’s not about taking away from Luka but the context. If he’s doing that no one reasonable would deny prime Jordan’s doing 40+ 10 and 10. He put up 10 triple doubles in 11 games when moved to point for a number of games one season. Austin Reaves was averaging 40 in 5 games without Luka ffs. Come on now.
Another good example is that 20+ years ago a 70 point game would be revered for a while. Yet Luka Mitchell and Embiid scored 70 within a few weeks of each other and it was quickly forgotten because people know these stats are heavily inflated- even those that won’t admit it.
I mean even Jokic who….. er better not open that can of worms. His fans are notorious.
Yet Luka Mitchell and Embiid scored 70 within a few weeks of each other and it was quickly forgotten because people know these stats are heavily inflated- even those that won’t admit it.
Amusingly enough, this actually illustrates how unmemorable those games were to you because Mitchell and Embiid didn’t have their 70-point games in the same season. Mitchel had his 71-point game in the 22-23 season, alongside Lillard, who also had a 71-point game that season.
Embiid’s 70-point game was in the 23-24 season and KAT also had 62 that same day. Luka’s 73 came 4 days later…and wouldn’t you know it, Booker had 62 that same day.
lol I stand corrected. It all blurs together. And I don’t even want to be that guy. I’ve had league pass for 10 years. Fan of the game for 30. But I can’t pretend I don’t see what I see as someone who has played and loved the sport for so long.
What I don’t get is that if the players are that far advanced why make it EASIER for them? Shouldn’t you be tightening the rules up to ensure they are being held to some kind of standard? I mean I know the answer is to artificially inflate scoring for business purposes but what they don’t get is the NBA had high ratings during lower scoring periods. Sometimes the drama of a tightly contested game where every bucket seems like a chore to get is more exciting than 125-117. There should be a balance.
What I don’t get is that if the players are that far advanced why make it EASIER for them? Shouldn’t you be tightening the rules up to ensure they are being held to some kind of standard?
Right on, great players don’t need further advantages to dominate and it actually cheapens the stuff they do. Luka averaging 35/9/9 doesn’t even feel like a big deal because of this. Again, that’s a guy averaging 35/9/9. That should be a gigantic deal and yet, here we are.
Adam Silver wants people to feel like they’re watching can’t miss basketball via records being broken. A lot of his ideas feel short sighted with no regard for long term integrity. Even the patches on the jersey, sure it brings in money but aesthetically it looks way less prestigious than the pre 2018 jerseys.
Take the top four stars. SGA and Luka both use the arm bump frequently, so much that the shoulder bump/push off is a patented part of SGAs game, and they also both create contact and get shooting fouls for it. Luka has that slow move where he armbars the defender behind him. Giannis definitely travels more than he’s called and bulldozes opposing players. Jokic is absolutely able to set illegal screens to set up his teammates, and the more loose they are with the whistle the more he can do it.
I’m a jokic fan, but yeah everyone benefits from this on the offensive end. I don’t think he benefits maybe as much as some other players do, but he definitely does benefit.
Nah Jokic def benefits just as much, notice how physical he gets with his elbow and forearm when trying to walk to the basket
That’s not new. Bigs have always had their own unofficial special rulebook that allows for more banging.
IMO Giannis is definitely in a different tier when it comes to the preferential treatment with his offensive fouls and blatant travels—imagine if 2012-18 prime LeBron was reffed like that. In contrast, I find it often that ultra-skilled offensive players like SGA, Luka, and Jokic legitimately earn their free throws upon closer examination with replays and different angles.
Giannis is up there, but SGA is the worst offensive-fouler ever. He goes beyond the forearm bump to just putting his hand on guys and transferring all his momentum.
Jokic seems the player whose stats are the least inflated by the modern rules. He’s not a Giannis that abuses the gather step.
Ben explains it so well. He’s great at putting basketball concepts that you may have an inkling of into words you can understand.
those long drives are pretty much only possible if you are actually traveling
Giannis is one of the biggest culprits of this I can ever recall. There would be so much uproar about his playstyle if he were to ever play on a big market team like the Lakers
did the 3 to make 2 freethrow rule make it hard to contextualize scoring numbers from 1950-1981. Or do we have to rethink how highly we regard scores from the 80s and 90s since they took advantage of illegal defense. Should post scorers from the past be side eyed since they could back people down for more than 5 seconds. Why is that only this era of basketball is subject to this sort of scrutiny
I feel like I understand the NBA rules less than I did watching basketball for the first year I’ve watched NBA.
Exactly. I don’t know what a moving screen is and travel is impossible to call in real time or is plain missed.
People would defend this saying the rules haven’t changed. It’s not the rules but the implementation of it. It not a fun product for me to watch anymore.
Since when could players lift their pivot foot after picking up the ball. I stg I never saw this before 2022.
That’s called a step through and has been around forever
He’s likely referencing the Grayson Allen clip against the Timberwolves where he lifts his pivot foot off the ground, puts it back down, picks it up again then drags his toe. All well before he shoots the ball. Not a step through.
Ya, you’ve always been able to leave your pivot to pass or shoot. All that other shit is just ignoring the rules for some reason
And the exchange rate for a Eurostep is 3.5 steps (gather and 3 steps) - it’s never called for a travel
After I saw Giannis take 5 steps while the ball was in one hand, i realized mfs can do anything now.
some bucks fans say he’s still gathering.
It’s a gather step, basically when you palm the ball super hard you’re allowed to run a marathon before dunking
And plenty online said that’s a legal gather which is worse imo
This is the NBA Adam Silver wants
This is the NBA bringing in that middle eastern oil money so yeah…. makes sense
I see these calls and in my head I’m like “oh that’s not even a foul” or “that was totally a foul.” Then I hear the announcers agreeing with the refs, and it feels like there’s some kind of grand conspiracy and everyone is in on it, or I’m just fucking crazy??
the nba and adam silver forgot about the “no-call”. basketball is still a contact sport, players can touch each other without a foul being called.
i remember that era where the one who initiated contact was the one called for the foul. that’s isn’t the case now. just so confusing
I love hoops, start of the year I got my first coaching qualification, I’ve been an assistant coach for half a year and now the club im with is gonna sponsor me getting the next qualification so I can lead sessions as a head coach for some of our age groups.
It’s truly doing this and playing in actual leagues the last year or two that have made me realise just how bad the nba is with its rules. Don’t get me wrong I think some laxness to encourage creativity is fun but there’s just so much bullshit. It’s hard to coach kids or ref scrimmages when I’m basically watching a different sport.
The push offs and offensive fouls are so bad, watching jokic post up guys and just use his forearm as a battery ram is crazy . People wanna act like we’re so much better now; players are better but letting 7ft 280lb dudes push n shove like that is part of why it’s impossible to play good defensively. It’s even arguably worse with weaker wing types like shai, Tatum and pg who aren’t so strong naturally and really rely on push off. I’m personally fine with guys lowering the shoulder and using their body that seems to me basketball; but these guys I listed aren’t strong enough to do that like Zion or Lebron so resort to push off. Or jokic needing it because of the back to basket rule. It’s wild cos as great as the Denver rockets game was jokic was so blatantly pushing off on sengun every second and vice versa ; it lost all beauty of the sport.
I still love ball n the nba. But man they gotta clean some of this up for the sake of the game. It’s made the game LESS skilful not more; which imo you should not ever want. I’m sorry but if they enforced travelling, carrying , and offensive fouls at all then a guy like Giannis would not be Giannis as much as that pains his fans . I think that’s good for basketball personally. It’s probably also made the game hardest for small guards , kd had that quote and it’s kinda true in part because the skill and lower height to effectively handle the ball is less needed when everyone can just travel or carry, so further reducing talent pool and reducing the player type that is most popular with fans as kids just so Giannis can 3 step his way to the rim? This isn’t unique to him tho ( neither am I saying his athleticism won’t still make him a star just not a superstar all timer imo and why I find it hard to rate him fairly cos I find his game so ugly) , but around the league we just magically are getting bigger ball handlers and seeeinh more in the draft. I personally don’t even think it’s good marketing for the nba to eliminate the only near normal sized nba players by making ball handling so lax that any bum can do it. Seriously the larger more athletic less skilful players benefit the most from the ability to palm travel carry as gather step all the way to the rim .
It’s honestly just disappointing , because I feel bad doing something I enjoy because the nba has warped the game so much from how it’s played. And not in a great way . I don’t want to just watch athletics competitions ffs, most hoop fans don’t. Nobody knows that a travel is anymore , making me wonder if the gather step was a mistake too, especially if people are arguing that Giannis travel lowlight was legal. So often what should be nice moves are just awful carried ; not side or near basketball carry but near fully under . Just lame af
The NFL style blocks are just insane to me. That is not basketball. Screens were already getting pretty illegal and now they let you act like a pulling guard clearing out a lane? Like wtf?
I remember when I played junior ball (at a dogshit level mind you) one of the bigs asked if he could screen with his arms at his chest instead of covering his nuts like the classic screen position. Coach said “yeah see if you can keep doing that after the defending player nut taps you on the way by the first time.”
Obviously with 10 camera angles on any play I’m sure flagrant 2s would come out but would that be compensation for getting Josh Hart’s arm where it hurts the most?
IIRC it was Jaylen Brown who kept grazing Hart’s nuts and not the other way around lol
moving screens by bigs for PGs are pretty much par for the course today.
Ok but there’s a difference between shifting on a screen and grabbing the guy and pushing him 10 feet off his spot. It’s gone to a whole other level.
It’s at an all time egregious level these days. Watch every “screen” that hartenstein or caruso sets. They have their arms fully extended and are basically pushing defenders away.
My favorite is the Gortat/Theis Screen, where a big in the lane will basically box their defender out as the ball handler is driving. It opens up a lane and nullifies the help. You’re totally allowed to box guys out before a shot goes up, which gives it enough plausibility to not be a moving screen.
This is a great video, which is why I’m sure the mods will delete it.
But yeah, the officiating this season has been very strange so far. It’s like the NBA listened to everyone’s complaints about how no one plays defense anymore, and decided to make it impossible to play defense at all out of spite
It’s not just this season. It’s been piling up. Warriors first started setting those moving screens, but it escalated to everyone straight up blocking. Harden was abusing the gather rule and others got more creative with it. Multiple people were chicken-winging, now everyone full on stiff arms. This bump into the chest is absolutely diabolical. Makes sense now why some of these kids are running straight into my chest wanting a foul.
It’s also worth noting the officiating discourse this season has been carried by the fans—I remember the myriad discussions following the recent World Series about how the NBA should take note of the rule changes to baseball (like the pitch clock) that significantly improved the pace of play and watchability of the games. Besides Thinking Basketball, I cannot recall any NBA-affiliated media members or analysts bringing this up.
Mods don’t delete vids that have thousands of viewers only ones that have a hundred or so, even if a bud gets upvoted well ..sucks becuase we all been saying X’s and O’s discussions is neat
My jaw literally fell to the floor when I watched Amen plow into Curry’s chest hard enough to bust down a damn door, and somehow because he wasn’t in “legal guarding position” it was overruled to a defensive foul. I can count on my fingers the number of full nba games this year that were not marred by some genuinely insane reffing. I’m so glad Ben is fed up as well.
Insane and inconsistent. You can watch the same foul get reviewed back to back games and get two completely contradictory answers. The NBA is the only sport where the names of the referees are so prominent because how they ref The game is so prominent.
At this point it’s not the refs themselves. It’s the training and instructions they are given. This doesn’t happen overnight, the league allowed this to happen. League officials are the ones training and evaluating them. They aren’t just complicit they are promoting this product.
There was a play in the finals when Kawhi actually broke cartilage in Kevon Looney’s chest doing this and it was called a foul on Looney
https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/bw6axg/kevon_looney_gets_injured_on_a_kawhi_leonard_drive/
https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/kevon-looney-out-for-nba-finals-with-fractured-collar-bone
The big problem is, the refs are calling it how they are told to by the rulebook. It is the rules that are the problem.
There should be WAY more non-calls when the attacker initiates the contact. Doesn’t even have to be offensive fouls. Just let them play if an attacker is trying to draw contact to get the foul rather than trying to score.
That isn’t true. This video shows that. The issue is the instructions and training refs are given on how to infer it.
I think they should call offensive fouls offensive fouls. Problem is pushing off and arm bars are so ingrained these days that everyone is doing it and to start calling them would grind offenses to a halt.
I don’t know what to do about it but these moves where the attacker just pushes the defender out of the way and it gets called a defensive foul, that shit needs to go. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a charge called.
watching warriors games we saw podziemski draw a ton of charges last year - mostly teams have started playing around it but sometimes it feels like the refs are giving him a bit of “alright kid cut it out we won’t give you those every time”
the rules for what is a legal screen has not changed, the warriors just popularised illegal screens and now they are out of control.
You want to know why players are scoring out of their asses these days? This is why lol. defenses are completely fucked. Offensive stat inflation is rampant and it’s because defense doesn’t exist because it isn’t allowed to exist anymore.
Yeah this is why nobody gives a fuck about “xyz star dropped 35/5/5!!!!” Like ok that used to mean something when it was hard. In MJs era, like 5% of players had a 30+ game in a season. Now it’s like 15% of players lol. It’s only possible with NFL blocking, traveling, carries, and shit that would get you laughed at on a pickup court
It is not just about MJs era. Go back to the 2000s and see the difference
For sure, the 2000s were one of the most challenging times to score. Slower pace, defenses were allowed to zone up and be more physical, but offenses had yet to adapt with increased shooting and spacing.
When MJ was with the Bulls, no other guard averaged over 27.5 ppg in a season.
Watch jokic post up sengun at end of rockets game and count the amount of fore arm use and push offs. ‘Goat offensive player’ but we need to let him push off like that ? So ugly when his game is quite usually skilled
I knew it had gone too far when I’d see a player drive to the lane with a defender on his hip and instead of contesting, the defender would step away with their hands down to concede the basket but avoid the foul.
And they’d STILL get called for the foul.
Seriously, watch Luka’s 70 point game. You will see some amazing buckets. You will also see defenders actively avoiding contests because fouls are so prevalent.
That Amen on Curry one to start the video was comical.
You could totally tell by Thompson‘s face that he was planning on fucking destroying Curry too, which he does. The chefs kiss of ridiculous nba officiating was that he got the call after review.
I’m still baffled by that. Curry was in about as legal guarding position as you can get and they still called it on him.
Adam Silver’s MNBA
I wonder how many times he’s played basketball before in his life. And how many NBA games he watched before he started working for the NBA.
I have a feeling both number are way lower than what should be expected
This post will be removed for not posting content that says the modern game is the greatest thing we have ever witnessed .
I’ve been saying this since the very beginning of the season: this season is an outlier, or the future of the NBA is bleak. The books are cooked. The same thing happened a few years ago (Embiid MVP season, I think?).
We’re getting gaudy scores constantly. Four players are averaging over 30PPG. Austin Reaves went from a career 15PPG to 28 somehow. You can’t contest 3 pointers like at all now?
They gotta dial this shit back. If everyone is unstoppable it cheapens the product. It also feels like the whistle is extremely loose in the paint right now but extremely tight everywhere else, which makes for a shit viewing experience.
Reaves is more about playing for the Lakers and getting 10 FT/game.
When even thinking basketball is no longer trying to be diplomatic, you know something is messed up.
I firmly believe there are several players in the league right now who are considered anywhere from good 6th man to high level starter whose offensive value exists solely because of the illegal screens they set. The degree of advantage gained by setting illegal vs legal screens is really hard to overstate.
You know why athletic slasher guards/wings who can’t shoot are almost extinct as primary offensive options? Because their ability to create dribble penetration has been made almost entirely redundant. In the past, good PoA defenders could be fully expected to be able to consistently maneuver around screens, because a planted screen is a very real but still manageable obstacle. This meant that the ability to burst by or around your defender had advantages many point guards couldn’t produce from a screen action. Nowadays, these illegal screens create advantages that far surpass that created by slashers with perhaps 1-2 exceptions for the elite of the elite in that category.
I’d be interested to dig into when precisely the moving screen problem really became as insane as it is now. I’m biased, and I will freely admit that this idea is almost certainly a product of my disdain for this team, but I really think it was the Warriors first run. I think the league saw how entertaining people found Curry’s playstyle and decided to relax screening enforcement to make it even easier for his highlight bombs to rain down. Again, I’m biased, but it’s well known how egregious Draymond and especially Bogut’s screens were compared to the rest of the league.
I think the league saw how entertaining people found Curry’s playstyle and decided to relax screening enforcement to make it even easier for his highlight bombs to rain down.
Always thought the SSOL Phoenix Suns would’ve won a championship if they were reffed like the dynasty Warriors. People forget, but those teams were way ahead of their time offensively and Nash’s play forced analysts to change how they saw basketball going forward, particularly when it comes to judging player impact beyond the box score. The Amare and Diaw suspension in the 2007 playoffs was so ridiculous, it’s so crazy nobody brings it up anymore especially when the Spurs-Suns series was basically the NBA finals that year.
What made that era fun, is there were different matchups against each other. It wasn’t just a bunch of Suns teams playing each other.
It was a bunch of slow post up based teams though
Suns were too shit on defense to get it done, Warriors were the complete opposite there.
Yep that’s why I’m not going to argue with anyone how many of the superstars in 2010 era I grew up would dominate this era. Idc about stats or efficiency, this era inflates it.
The league won’t do anything about it while they’re making more money than ever. All they had to do was call more defensive fouls and you have stars appearing out of nowhere from guys that I think are just exceptionally mid basketball players. Portland fans can be mad at me but this just feels like a video about Deni Avdija.
If you think Avdija is mid, you never knew ball.
Hate me if you want, I stand by it.
He’s driving into defenders and now getting 4.4 more FTA per game and shooting them at a higher percent. His free throw rate per field goal attempt jumped 36% from last year. Nearly double from 2 years ago.
In any other era he would be a good role player, not a star.
Deni has had some absolutely disgusting games this year. 31% of his total points this season have come from free throws.
For comparison’s sake: SGA 26%, Harden 28%, Luka 29%, Reaves 29%, Jimmy 35%.
I haven’t watched many games this season, but I caught the GSW v Portland game the other day.
If I didn’t know about Deni’s rep, I would’ve just thought after that game that he was a great young player that Portland had found. I didn’t really see anything like SGA or Reaves from him. Just thought he went hard to the rim and actually attempted to score on most possessions, instead of looking for the foul.
I didn’t see what other people are talking about. I know sample size of 1 though.
This is only missing the head snap back and rip throughs, then it would include every issue I have with the modern game.
Think they addresses the rip through during the segment with the “act of shooting” fouls
rip throughs are like Kobe-old lol (i dont like them either)
I’m convinced modern defenders are better than they’ve ever been in NBA history. Purely bc the demands placed on them are nuts.
The amount of space they have to cover, the knowledge they need to be navigating (moving) screens and switching and isolation and helping, not making a mistake, AND you have to put up with travelling and ballhandling rules, and if you do everything right you might get called for a foul anyway.
Lol but those “defenders” are doing the same thing offensively against the rules. The problem is they aren’t putting in the same effort on defense than they are on offense which is allowing them to have full stamina on offense. The real challenge is defending consistently and still trying to put up production on offense.
This is why I will always prefer two way stars like Giannis over someone like Jokic or Luka. He works his ass off on offense and defense even though he knows that playing defense is ultimately a thankless task in the modern NBA.
Giannis has benefited from the way the game has been refereed more than any other player.
It’s nearly 2026 this Giannis defense gimmick doesn’t exist anymore (not in the regular season anyways)
it’s easy to overlook shai’s two-way play because of how good his offense is but his defense is pretty damn good. it’s very cool having a top tier mvp player playing hard defense too
Baseless comment
if they call this era the illegal offense era (as they should lol) some players will be really mad
But I’m supposed to believe the reason why someone like Zach Lavine is more efficient than Allen Iverson is because he’s just much more skilled and not because he’s allowed to travel, push off and have fullbacks clearing the way to the rim
Bad product. Fire Silver.
What’s funny to me is all the hyperbole about how much more skilled players are today when they play in fiba games a lot of them look mediocre. So the rules interpretations really do mean everything .
A player like domas is horrid over there but in the nba he puts up gaudy stats.
They are much more skilled, on average. Don’t look at the stars, look at what role players do. In the 90s you often had 3 players on the floor that could not shoot, dribble or pass on the move. The quality of the team offense we see now is really unprecedented. That’s what makes this idea of protecting the scorers so incredibly infuriating.
That is a lie lol. Those 3 players you are claiming could do all of those. The style was just different where you weren’t allowed to just dribble like a madman without being called for a travel. The fundamentals of the game were needed in all players to make it to the NBA. It wasn’t trying to have players just for the “handles”. Players just played more positions and not everyone just stood outside the 3 pt line
Hard to judge how good modern players are compared to previous eras when they play on easy mode offense thanks to refs and can do whatever they want despite the rules. Great video.
Thinking Basketball doing the lord’s work
Great video and it summarizes why I almost never watch games anymore. If it isn’t the absurdity of some of the non calls it’s the absurdity of what they actually decide to call.
I thought last year, specifically near the end of the year, struck a really nice balance with how the game was called.
I can’t help but agree about the leeway they’re giving to offensive players this year, it’s been extremely noticeable and is just not super appealing
If you think this, you clearly have not been watching the NBA for long. Last year was closer to this year than anything else, this year is not the problem, this past 5 to 6 years is the problem. Maybe past 8.
there was a week (leading up to the playoffs?) where free throws halved one week to the next. the playoffs were SUPER physical last year, maybe too physical, maybe the cause of Curry’s injury. these things are never black and white
I like this video, because it helps explain why I feel less and less like watching the games. Nowadays I generally think of the NBA more like WWE than real sports. The drama is the point, not the competition.
it’s ok to have qualms about the status quo without going overboard lol
This vid made me appreciate the comment that OKC is elite because they’ve mastered the rules
It’s time we admit that everyone misses watching the 2024 Pacers play beautiful modern offense 😬
Haliburton traveling every other play
The content we need
this is gonna get deleted
I heard a song that said there were no rules? Is it true? Is there no rules?
Adam Silver’s NBA in a nutshell.
The clear solution for the “hulk smash” instances in this video is not to go back to the 90s and call it an offensive foul, or to continue the madness of calling it a defensive foul. THE SOLUTION IS TO MOSTLY JUST STOP CALLING IT A FOUL, FULL STOP. Unless it’s extremely egregious, just let them play. But the fact that some of these were called defensive fouls (especially that Steph one) is insane.
So why do people flip out when someone gets a triple double nowadays? It seems like anyone can do it.
Nice video, I totally agree, the NBA has lost something along the way. It’s really not basketball anymore. I’d like to see the best players in the world play BASKETBALL.
When put together like this it is really egregious.
Thinking Basketball is just about as positive of an NBA channel there is. The only real negative things he gets into are correcting the record of people who have bad takes. This is, by far, the most negative and critical about the sport video he’s made on his channel. 100% deserved btw, but this is the first time he’s really gone out of his way to say the league’s got a massive problem that negatively impacts viewership.
Ben’s great, and I agree with a lot of points, but I HATE when someone shows one clip of a play 20 years ago and then concludes that’s how it used to work.
“When offensive players initiated contact, it would often be called an offensive foul, here’s Kevin Durant…”
Cool, what’s often? Would it be called that way 50% of the time? 51%? Or is it 30%? 80%? I watched Shaq initiate contact over and over and it wasn’t called that way. I watched Derozan pump fake 16 times, lean into a player to get free throws.
Refs missed calls then too, so “it was often XYZ” doesn’t strike me as a compelling argument
20 years ago, an offense foul could be a straight up bumping the defender away without going around him. Or you lowered your shoulder.
Shaq got many offensive fouls called before but not 100% of the time. However, he got enough that he would get himself in foul trouble.
Had this type of contact called correctly in today’s game, players would stop using it in every drive because you can get yourself in foul trouble very easily.
What’s worse is that the playoffs are officiated in a totally different way, make this another sport. What’s the point of that?
Isn’t this the same guy who loves glazing OKC’s “defence”. I thought he likes this style of basketball
I wish more people pointed this out. I understand that people think casual fans don’t want to see games where guys shoot low percentages, but this isn’t about that. These things all mostly result in BS free throws or things that don’t look/feel like basketball. No one I know would let this shit slide playing pick up, unless you’re having a “prison rules” game with buddies like you would when you were 12 and being ridiculous on purpose.
Need more FIBA games to expose these frauds
The extra steps is what gets me. I haven’t seen traveling called in a decade and every night I see some guard taking 5 steps across the lane before passing to the wing of throwing up some wild garbage.
The dragging pivot is also great. You can now go for a longer strike and delay layup just because you are on the ground.
Promise me a million times that you will never do another rule!
Been playing basketball all my life but started spectating soccer recently cause of this bullshit.
It’s entertaining but isn’t building good habits. For example, I doubt anyone thinks the US is winning the next Olympics with the roster it puts out, while still claiming the NBA is miles ahead of everybody. It’s gonna be like the early aughts again when the US can’t win an international tournament because the game is so different.
The one thing the creator of this video left out is that not only is the NBA engaging in this “ref guidance”, but they also clearly provide preferential treatment not just for individual players, but also for entire teams.
The Thunder (specifically Dort and Caruso) can commit 50 obvious defensive fouls a game and walk off the court with 3 fouls that were actually whistled. In the meantime, their opponents are often whistled on incidental minimal contact.
All of this new age reffing would be easier to swallow if it was consistent, but it just isn’t. And that, too, is not an accident.
It is clear the NBA is trying to create excitement around it by driving up the offensive stats and manufacturing stars and dominant teams. And they are not being subtle about it. It is now essentially the WWE in basketball format. Outcomes may not be quite as fixed and obviously fake, but the league is clearly steering who they want to be a superstar and which teams they want to rule the league.
And to me, that is a much bigger and worse bastardization of the sport than the rule interpretations if they were more consistent.
Just to add a bit of context to the video:
This clown has been defending Shai even more than Shai’s own father. For the last year he is arguing in his videos that Shai isn’t doing any offensive fauls, he is just too fast and the defender can’t catch up, eventhough we can all see Shai has been barreling into defenders.
After all that just one passing remark about Shai at the end of the video. Thinking Basketball literally sold out after that NBA deal. I don’t value his opinions any more.
he called out everyone except the poster children of gaming Silver’s rule book
Can you summarize this video?
It’s worth watching.
-Relative to any other era, offensive players are being rewarded with defensive fouls for… 6-step travels, moving screens (which often now resemble high speed football blocks), extending the off arm and shoving defenders out of the way, feeling contact and THEN shooting and having it called in the act, etc.
-Not only do these differences in how the game is called exist, they are revealed freakishly often because offensive players have picked up on them and are using them to gain advantage as much as possible. Essentially we are watching a different game than even 10-15 years ago with the amount of uncalled traveling, moving screens, and offensive fouls.
-Offensive fouls are almost never called when they should be, yet are still up from previous eras because offensive players are being so overaggressive that at least it’s called occasionally when they cross the line by so far. Meanwhile, defensive fouls and specifically shooting fouls are at an all-time high since the start of the 3pt era, and fouls per drive is at by far an all-time high.
-Refs are actually really good at calling what the league wants to emphasize; this is not a matter of inconsistency but rather one about the theory of competitive balance and what the league wants to call / what they want the NBA to look like
-All of this had led to by far the most efficient first month of NBA offense ever, making it different for Ben to evaluate offensive players (mostly slashing guards and wings) today relative to past eras because these changes in the way the rules are enforced make it possible for [insert high profile guards] to put up what would’ve been cartoonishly impossible numbers in previous eras through the use of blatant push offs, ramming defenders and dropping the shoulder, initiating extreme contact, traveling 4-6 steps and dragging their back foot, etc.
Lol it’s almost as if Ben put this out in response to bballbreakdown’s ref video
Thank you. It’s super gamified this year with free throws (just the implementation of the high 5 foul should let you know what Silver wants)
Dylan Harper gets to carry the ball every play also
Honesty think it is too early to come to a conclusion about what year is in a bigger context, Rookies have coming in looking great, teams are tanking. Eventful but tough to know what it means for the future.
Remember when scoring was going crazy, then the league decided to not call fouls. 2 years ago
Watch Paul George’s first basket he made on his return this season. Maxey passes him the ball, but before he does, he runs with the ball before passing it to him for the assist.
Carry is the new standard, Harper is no exception.