we know, but it seems the people making decision don’t

back in the day

Kareem was a foul-baiting ninny. Everything Joel Embiid did during his MVP season was shit Kareem did, night-in-night-out his entire career.

Part of the game is drawing fouls. It’s a skill. The greats all did it “back in the day”.

Yeah foul baiting makes it impossible to guard the best players…. and im a Luka Stan. You can’t guard these guys without just keeping your hands up. You cant contest shooters because players get to jump from the 3 point line to the free throw line and call it their landing space.

Offense apparently gets every advantage when driving through the lane…… unless you are bigger than everybody. The only place where defense has the advantage is in the post which is why post ups are almost non-existent

It is awful and has definitely reduced my interested in the NBA. Can’t believe they have let it get to this point.

Yep, can’t believe Adam Silver thinks this is fun to watch.

I don’t like it but it’s definitely sufferable

Players have always attempted to draw fouls, and will always attempt to draw fouls. Shooting free throws is a high scoring play; not making an effort to shoot free throws when possible is just the offensive player not playing optimally.

The real question is how the NBA defines when it’s a foul. Some plays are properly seen as foul-baiting but will never be regulated away, like if Luka or SGA beat a defender off the dribble then jump sideways so the defender runs into them from behind. That’s always going to be a foul because the defender is out of position, and the solution is “don’t get beat off the dribble.” The more pernicious play is when the defender stays level with the driving player, then the offensive player jumps sideways into them and is rewarded with a foul for initiating the contact. If this goes back to being an offensive foul (which it used to be), it suddenly becomes a lot easier to defend drives without having to send double teams that leave open 3 point shooters. The NBA also quickly scrapped any attempt at enforcing flopping after the first few flopping techs they gave ended up being non-flops by review. If they at least hand out retrospective fines or even technicals that counted towards the suspension limit, it would discourage players from flopping somewhat.

The other day I was watching the end of the Nuggets/Celtics game where the Celtics almost rallied late thanks in part to Payton Pritchard faking a defender off his feet, then jumping into him and getting three free throws. Thing is, the guy had already landed when Pritchard dove into his chest.

The next game came on, and in the first quarter, Luka drew the exact same call: fakes, defender slight hops forward and lands, Luka dives into him, free throws.

I turned off the TV for the night and played video games.

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its not modern players. its some modern players. the refs have the duty of cleaning it up and they continue to shit everywhere they go, with the exception of bill kennedy and i hope he starts to feel better

Hot take…I don’t think foul baiting is the issue. Everyone can do it, its fair game.

I think the real issue is still the refs and calling shit, or not. Idk how there’s so many of them at every corner and they still mess it up

Foul baiting is annoying, but refs are so inconsistent that I can’t even be mad at it. You have a 50-70% chance of not getting a call even if it’s a clear foul, so might as well go for the bait.

I don’t think guarding a player who foul baits is annoying since you just have to be smart and careful with your action. It’s annoying to guard someone who has an insane whistle and will get a call over practically nothing. Especially when they should be called for offensive fouls but never do

Yes, totally agree. I love the NBA, but right now when you watch an NBA game, there are basically two sports going on: (1) basketball, where the goal is to put the ball in the hoop, and if you get fouled it’s a by-product of trying to actually score the basketball, (2) a martial-art where your goal is to get the defender out of legal guarding position, draw contact, and get to the line.

Of course drawing fouls has always been a part of the game, but it used to be that at least most of the time, you drew fouls as a result of trying to score the basketball. Now there are a lot of possessions (not as many as some would say but for too many) where actually scoring the ball is the secondary goal, and drawing a foul is the primary goal. You see it because some guys like LeBron and Steph actually have lower foul rates than one might expect, because they aren’t as trained in the martial art as others. The martial art is something you have to actively do, instead of simply focusing on scoring the ball.

And honestly it’s hard to blame the players when the goal is to win, and free throws are more points per possessions than pretty much anything (and then defenders being scared to foul means even easier to score on other possessions). What’s easier: (1) actually getting by your defender and finishing over a contest from a seven-footer, or (2) get a small advantage on a defender, draw some marginal contact, and making 2 FTs? (2) is not only easier physically, it’s worth way more points per possession! Of course players will be drawn to foul-baiting with the incentives as they are.

It sucks because we see glimpses of what it looks like when foul-baiting is less rewarded, whether in tough playoff games or some FIBA ball. So it’s entirely possible. But the NBA is addicted to bright-line rules about legal guarding position and whatnot rather than letting refs just make judgment calls about whether a ballhandler jumping in some wild direction to draw contact is a basketball play or not. Smh

Complaining about foul baiting is complaining about players who are paid to play a game at the highest level and WIN, which is the whole point of a competitive sport. For all of nba history teams have tried to exploit the rules of the game to maximize the chance of winning. There is nothing different here. And yea the point of NBA rules is to make things easier for offensive players. that is the issue that needs to be fixed, it’s the rules. It’s not the players fault for adjusting their game to the rules to win, that’s literally their job

I can’t believe they can’t just build in a spirit of the game clause/ amendment. If a player is going in purely with the intention of drawing a foul, don’t call it. Goal has to be to try and score

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I’ll agree with you as soon as you can point out the exact delineation of when players didn’t try to draw fouls.

The league will allow it until all-star break. Then the refs will get the call to transition to the playoff whistle.

It’s a way to improve league parity, increase scoring numbers, and prevent wear and tear.

Your first paragraph just described guarding as it should be (but without hands up vertical, unless going for a steal). Yes you arn’t allowed to initiate contact, move into someone trying to score.

The issue is flopping, and players never getting penalised for flops.

But foul baiting, that’s a skill.

Whenever I played basketball, I relished the challenge of defending someone with crafty moves. Its as fun to me, as any other part of basketball, and defenders can adjust for pump fakes, and rip throughs. its just another element of the chess game at play, and to seek to remove it, would lower the skill ceiling immensely.

Its not close to impossible to guard. This meta increases the value of good guards, hence why small guards are out of favour in the league at the moment.

If your team/you are struggling not to foul, that’s not a rule book problem. It can also be annoying when there’s no consistency in what refs call a foul, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

NBA doesn’t even look like basketball at times….

I think players need a few accidental hits to the face early in the game … get flagrant foul Steve off the end of the bench for a few minutes here and there

NGL, y’all complaining about foul baiting is way more insufferable than witnessing it.

Idk bout y’all I love my games so extended thanks to the fucktons of free throws /s

I’d be happy if they would just call the damn offensive fouls that are still part of the rulebook like armbars and the shoulder-bumps

Suffering awaits

What do you think “insufferable to guard” means?

Because you’re asking an audience with no ability to answer that question

Amen! Plus, players on offense push off all the time. And don’t even get me started on travelling. It’s a wonder that anyone tries to defend at all anymore. Before long it’s going to be a league of Harlem Globetrotters games. Yes, I’m a cranky old man.

It sucks to watch. Players don’t want to play against it, that’s why there are so many techs and players arguing calls. Basketball should be about trying to make baskets with someone trying to stop you. Not how you can manipulate the game to get freethrows

Yep

What an unbelievably unserious league. Besides foul-baiting already a pivotal part of alot of players’ game, you also have officiating at an absolute low point where referees double down on the most braindead calls without any real repercussions. The NBA already had this problem since forever, but the current worsening state of the league makes any past issues look like a joke. Not to mention the league ties and continuous promotion of sports gambling and you might as well be watching professional wrestling at this point.

For me it’s more so that the NBA pick and chooses who is allowed to foul bait and who isn’t. If you aren’t the select few that gets calls when you throw your arms out then you look stupid AF doing it lol.

It’s the same on the defensive end. Some players get to play with different rules.

Impossible not insufferable.

I don’t love it, but “insufferable” is a bit much. At a certain point, you have a choice about what you’re going to get upset, and how much you’re going to let it affect your life. There isn’t a team in the league that doesn’t foul bait, no one is immune to it. If it is just too much to handle, I’m sure there are better things we could do with our time than watch something we dislike.

Foul baiting isn’t new.  The issue imo is the new rules and guidance that make defense impossible.

Corey Maggette on the mid-00s Clippers was a serial foul baiter.  But he was an exception during his era and almost no one noticed because those Clippers teams were too mediocre to draw national attention.  

Nowadays it seems that on any night the refs can reward a given player for creating contact with no real intention to shoot the ball.

everyone goes “back in the day” till you go watch back in the day and it’s absolutely atrocious defense everywhere

It’s basketball, not magic…Learn how to play defense

Damn man, y’all been one shotted by this ‘foul bait’ narrative. The only thing that’s hurting is your inability to enjoy the game.

Someone flops every now and then? It ain’t new. Not like there’s someone shooting 20+ free throws every night. Book cooked us in our last game with some premium foul baiting, but they were all fouls. It is what it is. Defenders gotta be better and they will eventually.

The thing that bothers me the most is when offensive players put their shoulder into the center of the chest of a defender, and it isn’t called a charge. That’s literally going through the center of where the defender is.

It feels like “legal guarding position” for getting a charge call is just standing still, holding your nuts, and falling backwards. It’s clownish.

Apparently, the NBA disagrees. Despite a consensus from every basketball fan I have ever talked to the NBA feels people prefer games where traveling never gets called, players flop constantly, and no one is allowed to play defense.

Maybe I’m just old but Jordan scoring 30 against the Pistons while they were trying to kill him en route to a 96-91 victory was way more impressive than Lebron, Luka, Shai, etc scoring 30 with 10 trips to the line enroute to a 147-138 win. Maybe Lebron or Luka would have been good in that era but we will never know because Adam Silver has done everything he can to make scoring as easy as possible.

That’s all anybody has acknowledged ever since I started watching and id rather watch the game.

bring the early 2000s era rules.

We know we hate it, the NBA loves it

Watching defenders completely afraid to make any contact at all because it will be called a shooting foul is so annoying to watch.

It’s literally killing basketball the sport. Sports are played by sportsmen, who strive to exhibit sportsmanship. If it’s not stopped basketball will go the way of soccer: becoming nothing more than a game played by gamesman 

Bigs in this league suffer the most when it comes to foul baiting because they look ridiculous when they do it but they get mauled a lot because they are “big”

They went from punishing flops with an actual call to rewarding baiting. They will end up next year with a call for baiting or something to try and appease the fan base. They can fix this by making no-calls on both flops and baits. Let them take themselves out of the play and get punished for it by their coach.

unfortunately thats the biggest compliment you can give to an offensive player. its a max salary characteristic.

We need to set an example and deport SGA

I feel like everyone collectively forgot how much players like Dwyane Wade foul baited. D Wade practically invented the rip-through.

Bro if you want someone to be completely honest, in modern (Jordan+) times, NBA has always been a disgustingly unwatchable doctored product. It was no less awful in 2000 than it is now. Traveling not called, preferential fouls, etc etc etc. NHL fans always say “best game, worst league” because of how cringetastically bad Gary Bettman is at managing product quality, but the NBA is maybe half an inch behind them. This is why it is impossible for serious people to take the regular season seriously, or do anything more than pay casual attention to the postseason. It is such a goddamn shame too because basketball properly officiated according to the rules of the game would be very very very compelling for the entire 2+ hours it takes to play it.

It was always gonna be exploited. It’s an inherit loophole/strategy/defect in the design of the game. If not now then 40 years in the future, if not then then 40 years in the past. If you shoot 40% from the field on 5 shots you get 4 points, if you shoot 90% from the free throw line on 5 fouled shots you get 9 points. It’s moneyball in basketball.

This is by far the worst season ive ever seen IMO. I just havent watched hardly any basketball. NFL has been a lot more enticing.

The way the rules are newly crafted by Adam Silver and how the Refs enforce it is connected to gambling. It’s easier for Refs to manipulate it now more than ever, think about how fake it looked like this baiting even 8 year old can see, don’t you think they don’t know this? This is intentional.

It doesn’t help your argument when the number one foul baiter wins MVP

100% agree. But also basketball (like football) has also developed the defensive mindset of pushing the envelope on illegal contact knowing the refs will tire of calling it every time. I see this as a problem on all sides of “win at all costs” mentality that has no honor.

I don’t agree, the NBA is better than ever

just watch kobe highlights. it’s insane to see how many of his bucket would be and 1s. and yet he rarely ever if ever foul baits. he went through a small phase of that but quickly cut it out. it’s just so much more enjoyable to watch a player earn a tough bucket and not cry about it

As a lover of defense in all the different sports I like, it really is mind boggling that offense gets it so easy nowadays by comparison, because of things like this that are just gaming the system implemented for better or worse. Very unfortunate.

you can tell when dudes first learn the word “insufferable” because they start using it to describe everything. learn a second word.

what you’re doing in this post is individualizing a systemic problem, something people do constantly today because they can’t conceive that a collective organization (starting with that daggone big govmint) can be trusted to enforce rules, so instead they moralize and blame individual people.

if only each individual foul baiter had a conversion of their heart and turned into “ethical” (your words) players who left points on the board in order to play “the right way” instead of the way that maximizes their chances to score points. if only you could shame them into acting right.

guess what! you can’t. so stop trying, it’s insufferable. instead focus your reddit posting powers, whatever they are, on who’s responsible: the league. the league is in charge of officiating. if they wanted the refs to stop rewarding foul baiting, stop giving out free throws like candy, and stop handcuffing the defense, they could do that.

until they want it to stop, the players will continue to exploit the rules because they would be stupid and uncompetitive not to do so. 

I like players who play smart.

primary goal isn’t trying to score but getting to the line

it isn’t for 99% of players. but if the opportunity presents itself, they’re going to take it. foul drawing has always been part of the game

On one hand it is annoying to see the guy drive get bumped slightly and then do some for of exaggerated floater movement to make look more like they were fouled. It’s ugly when Luka does it, it’s ugly when Embiid does it. But it’s a huge part of their bag. 

Otoh, if your defense is predicated on beating the shit out of the other team because the refs can’t call all of them fouls, is that really defense?

The issue isn’t the foul baiting per se, the issue is the inconsistency of the officiating. 

Like as an example, team A can maul the shit out of you and their best defender is pretty much playing BJJ with your star, and the moment he tries to be physical back it’s an offensive. But on the other end Team B’s best defender pretty much has to guard TeamA’s star with his hand behind his back because every contact is a foul. 

I’m willing to bet every fan of every team has felt the above scenario applies to them. 

The problem is the thr NBA feels like it isn’t an issue and that the players (and the fans) should just shut up and take it 

Could’ve stopped this with harden years ago. It’s way too late now. If they crack down it will only last half a season like last time

If you DRAW the foul then you COMMITTED the foul! What’s so wrong about that?

Isn’t this just the league emphasizing what they believe viewers want? Wouldn’t Ratings tank if they disliked all the foul baiting? 

Dating back decades, it seemed like vets only got the ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ calls. Superstar calls have been a norm for a while. A scrub bench dude wasn’t getting the same call as say Jordan or Kobe. 

Special treatments have gone to the next level 

no, we can’t agree.

playoffs were awesome last year. great games all around.

If they lower the amount of free throws then y’all will start complaining about great defensive teams getting away with foul calls.

Not even just OKC, I see how you guys react to the Rockets and Timberwolves.

My take is that this is just the latest thing that NBA fans are hyperfocusing on at proportions not worthy of the issue. Is it an issue? Sure, but not to the amount people talk about it.

Last year it was three point shooting. Everyone was talking about how the NBA is unwatchable because its just a “three point chucking contest” and has no skill. People were recommending rule changes every day to get 3 point shooting down and return us to “pure basketball”. I haven’t heard a word about it this season.

Next season, it’ll be something else.

Bro what are y’all watching? Basketball from 2021? This is the most physical basketball in a long time with how much contact refs are allowing.

The NBA has been shit to watch for the last 5 years maybe more. The flopping is just 1 of the reasons why its shit.

The only truly historic stats are from Jokic alone. The game is insufferable to watch in its current state though, I agree.

Luka plays like a bitch

Silver wants the NBA to be FIFA so bad

(edit: not sure why this is downvoted.. with all the flopping/flailing, the Cup and EuroNBA its pretty clear…)

If they actually addressed this, put rules in place to rectify it and enforced them the NBA would see viewership go up a substantial amount.

What guys like avdija and Reaves are doing on drives is disgusting.

Its bizarre

It’s boring and another reason why SGA will never be face of the league