The fact that more and more people are betting on these games and losing money I think is part of it.

Nah I think it was worse before integration personally 

10000% think this is the worst discourse has even been and it’ll get worse, there’s no real talking points just karma farming

Complain about the thunder and the refs is the only thing that gets upvoted in here 😂😂

I’ve watched basketball for a while, players always tried to exploit the rules. Dwyane Wade pumpfake and jump into defender, James Harden low gather to forced shot when defenders hand is reaching, KD ripthrough, Steph shoot and flail, etc etc. All these have been stopped with specific rule changes in the past.

Whats weird is that all these rule changes seem to have been kind off forgotten. To take Shai as an example (and I’m not saying he’s the only one), he regularly uses the Dwyane Wade pump fake and jump into defender, or the hand in cookie jar forced jump shot, but instead of applying the rule changes, he just gets the call. Its super weird and inconsistent, and a definite break from how the NBA previously handled it. It also seriously impacts the game. James Harden had a steep dropoff after not being able to go to the line as much, effectively ending his MVP streak

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It’s the type of fouls not the amount. Players used to go to the rim with the intent to score a basket, they absorbed contact as a consequence of that. Getting the bucket was the priority. Today getting the foul (and selling it) is the emphasis, making the shot is a happy accident. I blame analytics, there is nothing more efficient than a free throw.

Yes, OKC’s run has genuinely caused mental health issues in large flocks of people around here. Look at the comments dominating this sub right now, shit is bordering on mass hysteria and this place is crashing out on the daily. This is a basketball subreddit and night after night the top post on it is a foul call, a missed call or a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ call (slow motion, 7 different angles of something that took place in a span of 0.5 seconds of real time)

the nba/adam silver could stop it whenever they want. they apparently enjoy it

You can’t really blame people when the nba themselves seem more than happy to just sweep the officiating issues under the rug.

The 2018 season was probably the worst Harden’s basketball hitler era and the cup KD rings are probably a worse era from a discourse standpoint.

6 of the 8 teams left have built their defense around being REALLY physical when you can’t handle the physicality rather than playing better some stars take the easy way out.

I mean Chris Finch entire coaching strategy revolves around whining about refs during post pressers even in games they win. So I wouldn’t say it’s great. Who’s to say if it’s the worst it has ever been.

Silver has no balls. NFL players might act out but they get put back in line and pales in comparison to what we see in the NBA. Players treat the game like it’s a joke, Draymond mocking refs to their face, mocking fans, laughing like an idiot then punching a player in the dick because he doesnt want to play that night since Steph is out. All the while Silver giggling in the corner like a moron going “hehehe typical Draymond, he’s so zany and wacky oh gosh what a character he is”.

Multiple pros have complained about flopping yet the NBA aren’t doing anything and its getting out of hand but they don’t give a fuck.

It’s not like just a few salty pros, coaches and players have been annoyed with flopping way before the playoffs.

People like complaining about things more than they like basketball.

The front page of this sub today is fucking insane. There’s a dozen ref related posts at the top and any actual highlights are soo far down with barely any interaction

Ive been watching basketball for 44 years and I’ve never seen basically all the fanbases ban together against one team. Its pretty universal that everyone has an issue with the Thunder. Don’t pull the “they win” people had problems with them before they were champions. SGA already had started building his reputation before he was even with the Thunder. Anyone that defends the way he plays must not like basketball. I remember when Americans talked shit about Soccer players all the time, now the Soccer players laugh at the NBA.

Tik tok brain rot. Barely any critical thinking or honest attempts at evaluation. Conspiracies and first-thought-best-thought abound.

OKC are basketball terrorists and must be stopped. I’m a Celtics fan rooting for Lebron and the Lakers, this is fucked

Honestly, it’s because of all the other little things, and the refs are just the final straw. We need 100 streaming services to watch the games, stars never play during the regular season so buying tickets to games is a gamble, every other commercial is a sports book, and ¹⁄₃ of the league tanked this season. Now throw on top the best team is arguably the biggest perpetrator of flopping on offense, and insane over-aggression on defense. Silver needs to step down as commissioner, he’s not a good leader, nor has he steered the ship correctly

In the meanwhile, the NBA has the highest viewership it’s ever had. If the people who said they can’t watch would actually stop watching maybe we would have a better sub.

I’ve watched basketball since 2014 aswell, this season I watched damn near every laker game (FUCK NICO, I miss dallas). I thought the reffing was inconsistent even back in 2024, it progressively got worse. This season has been some of the worst refereeing I have EVER seen, they are so inconsistent im starting to think they dont know their own rules, it makes no sense why they call travel on one guy, then let another guy take 5 steps, consistently. some games one team is allowed to play way more physical than others, the insane flopping is also absolutely moronic. I miss KOBE.

Mind you I was a football/soccer guy long before basketball, and I hate the filming and flopping there too.

It’s weird to me that people are pretending this is a new thing with online discourse. The best team going on a crazy run is disliked online.

I also personally think it’s nuts that people don’t accept or see some of the degradation of what the game is becoming with some of the min maxing of how teams are playing. Foul baiting and flopping is the identity of the leauge now, and yeah that’s not super fun to watch. It’s funny to watch fans of teams complain like OKC is uniquely bad with strictly the flopping element but then to see some OKC fans pretend that they don’t also flop. Everyone are floppers it’s the game now. It’s not like ratings are going down either, gambling money is up, there’s no incentive on the leauge side to change anything.

I hate saying this because it feels counter productive but if you don’t like what the product is becoming the only way to make your voice actually heard is by voting with your view and your dollar. You can’t keep giving the NBA your time and money if you want it to change. Just my two cents.

Sports leagues in general have us in this gambling advertising box where they are extracting more and more money out of us each year and we’re all just stuck because what the fuck else are we gonna do not watch sports. So the product both on and off the court can get worse or less fun to watch but nothing will change in the numbers. Regardless of how much we might be disappointed or complain online.

For what it’s worth I do feel like the rule book & referring have been a central part of conversation for about as long as the league has existed

It’s pretty awful yeah. Whole front page right now is just refposting, 99% of gamethreads is refposting. I get being frustrated with calls sometimes, but at a certain point do you even like the sport?

It’s just an objectively bad product. Officiating is inconsistent and there is a clear bias to certain teams at times. And even when there isn’t a bias, over officiating brings the game to a grinding halt.

The Spurs/Minnesota series is great. What an awesome matchup. I’m loving it, I think these two are going to battle it out. It’s a lot of fun to watch. They both want it, they’re both good and I have a feeling it’s going to be epic.

No nonsense or drama, just two competitive teams throwing down.

Well Embiid and SGA are the two biggest flopping targets and they are going against the two largest fan bases in the NBA in New York and LA.

Personally I think it’s great. The only way the league will get rid of this stuff is if this continues and starts to impact the coverage of the league.

Everyone is just looking for consistency. The inconsistency of these calls makes it really hard to know what is a foul and what isn’t. It’s more frustrating for players having to adjust how they play literally each possession.

So many players, coaches, fans and organization has been so entitled in this online community that it is easy to “rid” themself of failure or disappointment by creating these narratives that it is NOT MY FAULT!

And the media, podcasters and content creators of course are leaning into this take cause it is more of those than the level headed fans that can live with whatever happens. So it is a downward spiral and as everything else in this community, those assholes screaming loudest, gets most attention.

That summer when embiid won the MVP and Jokic his ring was way worse.

The product is bad, and your snotty post doesn’t change shit about that 

While I do think it is particularly bad with the refs discourse, NBA reddit genuinely becomes a cesspool as soon as play offs start every year

Flopping is not an issue. The extensive time calls take are an issue and is killing the game

100% before this game I’d say heatles or KD warriors stood atleast worthy convo. This might be the most anger I’ve seen online for basketball ever LMAO. There’s a lot of plays on both sides tho I think in the 4th quarter okc got favored a lot. But the first game was very fairly officiated and first 3Q okc and lakers both got bad calls or non calls on them

Another thing is that this sub really must be filled with 13 year old kids, I always thought it was a lil joke but the way people react and repeat stuff and they’re talking points makes me almost certain they’re not a day over 13!!!!

Why, do you too have a twitter troll from Temecula?

The flopping discourse for me is so unhinged because it’s no longer just about flopping, people are criticising NBA players for trying to draw fouls in and of itself, the say that trying to draw fouls is not real basketball 🤡

Who has the authority to fire adam silvers?

If the same issues keep popping up then people will make more and more noise about them. If the refs keep getting worse every season then people will get worse every season

It’s certainly the most that discourse has been a part of the discourse

I think access is a factor too. I agree that discourse is louder these days - in the late 90s/early 00s, I think it was just more spread out in various message boards or what have you. Echoing a lot of other comments about seeing the unification against the Thunder. I say one thing and the Thunder/SGA defenders clowned me incessantly lol.

Drawing fouls and foul baiting are different, IMO. Hand in the cookie jar and you catch the defender in the wrong? I get that. Jerking your head back aggressively so the refs get influenced into calling a foul (or upgrading the foul call into a flagrant 1)? I think that’s an example of what gets fans upset.

It got pretty bad in 2017-2018 during Harden’s prime, but this is definitely the worst it’s been from complaints about flopping/referees.

But honestly, I rather this be the banter than the typical “who’s under more pressure” or “how does this affect their legacy” talk.

As a thunder fan, i love it. It’s great seeing people cry over a sport lmao

Fix the game

No

I didn’t follow this season way too many “injuries” felt like there were like 20 % of games with whole squads. (gambling point, I read the article on the games and there was always like 2 to 3 people missing everytime)

Discourse or NBA?

There is a common thread to the situation that spans “every single game”.

It’s always been this way. Listen to just about any home broadcast and the announcers are just complaining about the refs.

Alot of it is justified though, the reffing has been god awful and needs to be addressed. Shit is getting unwatchable

Sports betting has a lot to do with it. People are losing their kids college tuition LOL

Thanks Adam silver

OKC the chiefs of the NBA

The product is garbage

Tbh, its both.  

The conversations about it are exhausting, but people see the games and feel how they feel about it. 

I quit watching because of the officiating in the early 2000s. That turned out to be (partly) because refs were throwing games.

Seems just as bad now. I actively avoid OKC games

worst ever is just recency bias but the combo of gambling takes, slow mo ref clips and algos boosting outrage over actual hoops definitely makes today’s nba discourse feel the most cooked it’s ever been

Because some fans need an excuse or someone to blame for losing rather than their teams just not being good enough. The Thunder built their team the right way and they win the right way. It’s actually better than teams where the owners just buy a collection of talent and still can’t win. Newer fans are just soft.

The nba needs to simplify the rules and make rules less subjective

Honestly, most sports fans don’t sit on social media all day complaining. They are out at bars or watching with friends. This social media discourse bubble is non existent in the real world.

Have you watched the games? The refs have gotten way worse, people are complaining and the NBA is pretending everything is fine. Last night’s game was a joke

Nah it was the same with michael jordan way back. You can see players joking they can not touch him to his face, and complaining endlessly on media.

And even when he wasnt fouled, he just went to the ref, tell them it was a foul, and the ref would whistle.

Yea it’s really bad. I don’t remember talking about refs even remotely close to this. Almost every game this week had “Refs You Suck” chants, and highlight reels of poor officiating (but also a lot of illegal plays).

Watch group had a lengthy conversation last night about this exact subject. Half of us have known each other since rec league and it’s never been like this. Hell we didn’t even know but who maybe two/three refs were period but now it seems like a reality series of characters.

Honestly I blame the players more than the refs. It’s hard enough calling a game keeping an eye on 5 different players matches up, with set of rules that is already vague. And now you add to it players who flop and try to take advantage of gray areas.

It was a perfect storm. OKC broke a lot of people. People who thought they knew better. But more than that, it happened at a time where sports media was bottoming out, pundits were playing solitaire during finals games, they’d have shows sit there for days talking about “which goat would survive todays game?” “Is Jokic better than Jordan?” instead of actual sports, there was no push back on the dramatization because it brought eye balls into the room. Sports heavy social media outlets also contributed as they viewed engagement more valuable than honest discourse. So, the louder someone was, the more it was pushed. Didn’t matter if it was BS. That normalized it. And now we have finally arrived at the point where being rational feels almost counter-culture which is sad to say and mean honestly.

I actually wonder (and I bet many have) if the referees can be automated. You see it in baseball, football, and soccer where the sport is moving towards systems where referee automation happen more often to get the call right, and that brings more fairness to the game. Like you have the pitch box for balls and strikes, sky view for first downs, VAR, but you don’t have the equivalent for basketball.

Basketball is still relying on the human judgment for a lot of these calls, and with replay showing referees getting the call wrong in realtime, as fans we can only wonder if they referees are not impartial and shaving points off for the spread.

Maybe the discourse is so bad because the product is so bad?

People definitely whine too much, but you have to look at the product the NBA has been putting out for the past years too.

It’s always been bad, but readily available clips of blatant one sided calls make it obvious. 2002 Lakers vs Kings and 2016 Cavs vs Warriors are absolutely worse.

No. It was worse during the prep to pro era.

Hey when Magic were playing Pistons we weren’t talking about refs, we were just talking about bricks every game.

More ways to talk/complain. Back in the 80/90s you call your buddy up to complain about stuff or if you were a real sicko, maybe call a sports show the next. Now we have social media. I guarantee if we had social media in the 90s Reggie Miller would have broken the internet with his flopping ass.

Idk if its the worst. But it is bad. The relativity of that doesnt change that faact.

There was a play last night where Ayton set a screen and shuffled his feet back and forth to stay in front of the defender all while the ref was staring right at him lol. Between the blatant moving screens and travels/carries that happen almost every play of every game and the bipolar refs having a different whistle for specific players, it’s made games so hard to watch.

Maybe because there’s an issue with officiating and we’re all sick of it?

If the refs actually called it tight and consistently we wouldn’t be having these conversations.

Enforce flopping rules.

Call offensive push-offs

Call travels (throw the gather step in the trash).

Call it the same for everyone.

Basically start reffing it like the Olympics.

Yea I literally turned off the game, it’s gotten bad

More players are trying to play the refs instead of the game

Its the leaning in foul call that gets on my nerves, or how the refs only blow the whistle after they missed scoring the basket. No wonder shai has such a high efficiency, its all inflated.

Shai should genuinely be put in prison. This man is a global terrorist who has caused so much pain to the world. You cannot seriously be exaggerating contact in a basketball game that I occasionally watch and expect to still be able to participate in society. I yearn for the day that mid game the authorities finally do the right thing and arrest him.

No, you’ve just started using Reddit more

Its earned. I used to love watching the playoffs. This is the most unwatchable the NBA has ever been. It feels like a controlled game by the refs. You can’t play defense and the most athletic people on the planet are sprawled across the floor every play. I don’t feel like I am watching a basketball game I feel like I am watching entertainment where the outcome is already decided.

It isn’t Shai’s fault or the Thunder’s. Its the officiating. We are watching a rigged league where the reason LeBron doesn’t get foul calls is because they know he is retiring and they need to build new stars. It feels rigged. That’s the truth. The flopping and everything else is the symptom of the terrible officiating and the rigged feeling.

I used to love watching NBA. Never been a fan of a team but I’ve been a fan of many players. Not a lot of players I like these days. Near 0. The lowest it’s ever been. The way the game is officiated makes it not worth a watch. The players will adjust to how the game is called every time. They act this way because the refs reward it. It could change over night if they wanted but that would mean the NBA has less control of outcomes.

The 24-hour news cycle brought with it the idea of “experts” sitting around and discussing topics that no one on TV had time to discuss before. These days, because of the money to be made, those experts (not to mention social media) are basically amplifying every single issue that arises and making everyone more aware of it. And gambling has made that even worse, because people care even more now. It’s not going to get better.

It’s terrible, people complain about absolutely everything. Obviously refs will always be a point of discussion in any sport and NBA refs definitely aren’t great, but the amount of complaining about refs is now off the chart.

It’s r/NBA that’s the problem.

MPJ?

The officiating just needs to be better, more consistent, and clearer. Full stop. Get rid of the flopping. Defensive players need to be allowed to exist in space and time. It’s a simple improvement to the league that would fix about everything. We started rewarding flopping to juice the leagues scoring metrics (since Silver thought scoring would drive more interest in the league). But now we are in a spot where every foul / non foul is a coin flip since we don’t even remember what a real foul is, what real defense is, what real offense is anymore.

Anybody that covers the sport, it seems like they’ve been sent a gag order. It’s impossible to ignore when you’re watching the game. Every basketball fan and every new fan can see it. People need to stop acting like it’s not a problem or just a small problem, when it’s every single possession. It’s not fun or interesting to watch.

I mean Dwade averaged like 24 FTA a game in the finals 10+ years ago. Think about that, 24 FTA for an entire series. Mark cubin literally hired private investigators on the refs lmao.

The difference between good officiating and bad officiating is consistency. That’s the issue here. There isn’t any consistency.

• Viewership has gone up

• The refereeing is atrocious

It’s one of the few times I can remember fans, coaches and players all agreeing about something.

I think the product is just kind of shitty right now, and anyone with two eyes and a bit of common sense can see it.

I think it’s just the game has become so robotic. Every game is who can make the most threes and bait the most free throws wins. The artistry of the sport is being lost(I guess foul baiting is a dark art).