[Highlight] Devin Booker draws the defensive foul on Chet Holmgren
Shai does this and it has 10k upvotes and people calling for his head
He tried the rip through move cause he’s gettin tired of gettin got by it but he’s so emotional he just threw an uppercut lol
nah this is violent. you say whatever you want with shai, he is never violent
Lol “violent”😂 that’s almost as dramatic as this Thunder team playing offense
He has his “cleaner” doing the dirty work for him… or are we intentionally forgetting about Lu Dort?
WTFF??
Booker has been an absolute embarrassment this entire series
Do nothing but complain about refs while doing cardio on both ends
Might be one of those calls where Chet got called for putting his hand on the ballhander which technically is a foul, and they ignored everything that happened afterwards which never made sense to me but I’ve seen them make calls that way a lot.
Also he’s impeding Booker’s path while out of position. It sucks that he got whacked in the face, but this is a foul on Chet.
He legitimately didn’t touch Booker until Booker hit him in the face
The replay very clearly shows Chet’s right hand on Bookers left upper arm first. I don’t know how you could look at the replay and not see that.
Booker swings his arm up to hit Chet and in the process Chet’s arm hits his. It’s fucking blatant.
Delete this now while there’s still time
It is not about the hands. It always starts with the feet and torso - whether they are in legal guarding position before any contact.
In this case, chet wasn’t in a legal guarding position before jamming booker’s driving lane. Anything that happened after (booker’s arms hitting chet) was not consequential
Outsiders see ball and hands to derive their opinions, but refs watch feet and torso first to make their judgement
The reason why the OKC ref narratives are so far from the stats is because if Shai does this it gets upvoted to the front page every time
this would legit break the sub if shai did this lmao
I’m just confused how this is a defensive foul, but the one from the other night where Caruso put his head into him was an offensive foul. The game is just reffed so inconsistently.
People who don’t use social media would be so confused seeing the online discourse around Shai and okc
I am a Thunder fan who lives in Phoenix. Ran into a guy earlier this season who had no social media but just a real nba sicko. Old man who just enjoys life and basketball and probably had no idea r/nba exists. It was a refreshing convo to talk to someone who just watched and formed his own opinion.
The important thing is that in this thread about this play, we worry about what people think of shai…
i mean i think its fair to point out the double standard this sub has. cant tell me this wouldnt have spawned in with 5k upvotes had it been shai. the outrage is selective
I’m a pretty neutral observer. It gets a bit overblown, but Shai absolutely has one of the most unusual whistles in the league, comparatively
i think this post is further proof that a big reason why you and plenty others feel that way is that whenever its shai, it gets amplified all over here and social media. when its anyone else, it barely makes waves. the outrage is entirely selective and primes neutrals to focus on it specifically with shai whereas you hardly notice it when other players around the league do the same shit. and i promise you, plenty of other players around the league are doing the same shit
I watch a LOT of NBA games dude. Shai’s whistle is more beneficial than most, if not, all of the league.
It’s not a matter of “other players doing the same shit” it’s a matter of how often it gets rewarded and SGA gets rewarded a lot more than players like Devin Booker. Your homerism is preventing you from seeing it, but people that know ball and watch a lot of games can easily see it
yeah i really truly believe that the narrative FAR surpasses what the reality is. for examplee, Jokic grifts soooooo fucking much and its largely ignored by this sub and nba twitter. its all selective outrage
Jokic absolutely does flop and foul bait a lot, but in terms of being rewarded for it? SGA clears him.
i dont really know what youre basing that off of but its obviously we’re not gonna be able to come to any agreement on this. so putting “who gets rewarded for it more” aside, who gets more hate for it? who drives more engagement over it?
I mean a prime example being the FTA this post season
SGA: 12.7 FTA per game
Deni: 9 FTA per game
Jokic: 6.7 FTA
Wemby: 5.7 FTA
Outside of the exaggeration, there is a reason the whole “FTA” narrative has been a thing for 4 years now.
Plain stats without any nuance to base a narrative
God bless r/nba
I mean, instead of trying to make a joke about the lack of nuance with in the sub. You could directly combat that and provide the numbers that you believe support an actual rebuttal.
That’s the whole purpose of a forum board, isn’t it? To drive actual discussion to learn. Instead of delving into a giant “lul ar nba bad lul” circlejerk?
A lot of shai’s fta this postseason is bloated by international fouls at the end of games. Shot 6 in the last few minutes of game 3 alone.
Jokics shot diet hasn’t really been conducive to getting to the line. He’s settling for a lot of 3s.
Don’t really think wembys numbers are fair to use when he only has 2 full games played and in the game he had left he went for the line 4 times in 12 mins.
But regardless this isn’t a conversation about who gets the line most effectively. It’s about who gets the most outrage for getting to the line and whether or not that outrage is proportional to others.
I personally feel like , compared to the amount of FTA these players get, it’s pretty proportionate.
Sure there is some exaggeration due to SGA being the reining champ and the style of defense OKC plays, but look at the top 5 in FTA this year.
After Joel, the FTA numbers start falling off pretty considerably and with the exception of Giannis(because he sucks at FTs lmao) every single one of these players get complained about as being foul baiter/free throw merchants.
I’d even argue that Luka get’s complained about almost as much as SGA. With recency bias being a thing, Luka has yet to play a game in the playoffs and SGA has gotta significantly more FTA than next closest person.
All this to long winded-ly say, I think it’s proportionate enough within the context of who the other top FTA players are.
I do think Shai gets a friendly whistle, but compared to the whistles of most superstar guards today and before I don’t think it jumps out that much, based on what I’ve seen at least. Looking at this sub though you’d think Shai gets a whistle twice as good as prime Harden.
Talking about Booker in fact, his whistle really does not seem much worse than Shai’s, his FTR is just slightly below Shai and I think I saw a stat that said that he actually draws more fouls per game than Shai does this year. A few years back when the Suns were good I remember he was absolutely highlighted as one of the bigger foul baiters of the league along with players like Trae, Luka, and Embiid of course. But because the Suns are now middling he now doesn’t get much spotlight for the good nor the bad. Goes to show that foul baiting narratives are impacted by factors beyond how much foul baiting the player is actually doing.
He has a superstar whistle, like every other superstar but it’s not worse than that of other stars. Wemby probably has the best whistle in the league
>Wemby probably has the best whistle
Making this statement just shows how out of touch you are when comparing. It’s a pretty common complaint that Victor has a Shaq whistle. Where apparently officials swallow their whistle for big men with a big height advantage.
If you actually watch Spur games you’d see Victor is legitimately fouled in the paint on 50% of possessions and he doesn’t get those calls. The OKC vs Spurs game was an EGREGIOUS example of this. Caruso hacked the hell out of Victor and was just allowed to do it.
To further provide example:
Victor so far this playoffs is averaging 5.7 FTA a game
Deni is averaging 9 FTA
SGA is averaging 13.7 FTA
Smartest spurs fan using fta as measure of how good whistle someone has🤣🤣
In terms of a player being rewarded for foul baiting, which is crux of conversation? Yes, it’s very much the most indicative stat.
We could also go with Personal Fouls drawn? You guessed it, SGA leads the way again. Jokic, Cade, Sengun, Banchero, even Scottie Barnes are all ahead of Victor.
Instead of trying to make an implied insult, you could try and make a rebuttal with a supporting argument to carry on the conversation
If you watched ALOT of games dude you’d see how much he drives compared to any other guard in the league. It gets called more for Shai cause Shai attacks more than any guard. Idk the data behind it but I’d wager to guess he averages the shortest range of any guard above 10 shots per game.
Drives the 3rd most in the league and gets the 3rd most FTA out of those drives in the league. Both numbers behind Jaylen Brown and Deni. Both of which get complained about having weird whistles as well.
These playoffs. SGA drives the 3rd most behind Cade and Deni. All around 20ish drives. In terms of FTA there’s a pretty big disparity between SGA at 6 and cade at 4.6.
I’m well aware the more drives tends to lead to more FTA, and most of the fouls when he drives into the paint are legit. It’s his middies are where most of my complaints come from. The running baseline middie he does where he over sells contact, the pumpfake followed by jumping into a player, and taking shots with no intention of getting a bucket but to get a foul.
I understand it’s gamesmanship and a part of the game because the league wont get it under control, but that doesn’t mean people are wrong to point out the biggest offenders in the league. Hell Victor does it somethings, and Castle whips his head back on drives and it drives me nuts
Can’t believe they reviewed that and gave Booker FTs lmao
They reviewed for a flagrant bud
It’s a blocking foul lol
It really isn’t though. Take your hate goggles off and watch this video
Legit what the fuck
The Tony Brothers cooked on this one
Chet hit in the face once again
It’s just a reality at this point. SGA 31. Chet hit in the face. Thunder basketball.
Dort tripping someone
[deleted]
That’s just how his face is
This would sky rocket to the front page if it was SGA
No it wouldn’t because SGA wouldn’t do this.
Always keeps his composure.
Shai is composure.
Ah that classic OKC whistle everyone is always talking about
Lmao what
Not sure how that wasn’t offensive at all or deemed excessive at least… but oh well
Or FT and a hostile act flagrant 1. Wind up and contact to the head. TB on one tonight.
Unbelievable call… is this that OKC whistle I keep hearing about? Booker has been such a bitch all series. Just complaining and crying while also foul baiting and getting bullshit calls
it’s pretty funny to see how little this sub reacts to a non-shai player getting these calls lol
Watching the upvotes go up and down is hilarious, people are mad mad
Chet needs a head injury assessment after every game at this point
Alright son
My opinion is that chet committed the foul first then booker. Chet’s feet were not set, torso not facing booker before jamming booker’s driving lane while booker was already in the midst of making a move. Hence the foul on chet.
Compared to the booker vs caruso foul in the previous game where caruso jammed booker’s spot - feet set, torso facing the attacker, before booker turned and tried to make a move. Foul goes against the attacker.
Refs have been quite consistent in my opinion
It’s a game of chess to see who bites first. Look past the foul baiting and realize how technical playoff games are and how the best players in the world wield that knowledge to their advantage
That’s NBA officiating in a nutshell right there…
Is this how fans felt watching the Bulls in real time?
Damn. The okc fans feel vindicated with this post lol. They brought the whole fam.
It’s safe in here cause most of r/nba will just downvote and move on
Booker OKCed him. 😂
Yep
OKC games on this sub are just going to devolved into opposing teams sketchy foul calls to “prove a point”
wonder why