ESPN writer Dennis Jr: “The Thunder foul all the time and it’s annoying to watch them play…[on defense] they’re pushing guys and playing nasty and you go down the court and SGA is like ‘Oh I fell’. That is what is frustrating.“
At what point people will start pointing the finger directly at the NBA letting this happen?
The league will just say flopping is a tech next season and it will last for a week
lol and most of them will be on Luka!
I don’t care who it’s on it needs to be officiated out of the game
Luka doesn’t flop. He whines. And whines and whines and fucking whines. But he legitimately gets hit a lot. SGA flops like every other position
People responding to you aren’t differentiating between flops and foul baiting. Luka and AR definitely foul bait and get a lot of calls but they arent flopping.
Absolutely, the best players have always foul baited. Some to more extreme degrees. But I’ve watched a lot of Luka and he isn’t flopping like SGA, I rarely see him actually end up on the ground unless it’s legitimate. And he’s played through physical matchups, like the clippers in 2020 and 2021. Shai is infuriating to watch, it’s more than foul grifting, he legit ends up on the floor like half the time.
He definitely flops wtf
He flops it’s just not as bad as SGA
I think it’s harder for fat dudes to flop.
Luka fat jokes in 2026 tells me that you are likely a casual fan. lol
Foul baiting and flopping are two different things. I do get thee confusion, SGA do both a lot.
Isnt this a rule already? Refs are just not enforcing it
Yep I remember the NBA making a big deal about cracking down on flopping back in the Heatles/Lob City era and they were legit enforcing it for like the first few weeks of the season and haven’t since
That was 12+ years ago smh
All teams need to copy this winning formula. Everyone needs to fall down and flop. It’s going to make a shit product and viewership will tank. Money is the only thing that’ll change anything.
Imagine that it’s one of the skills you can use in the next NBA 2k game.
They should be pointing at the players.
Where are the leagues leaders to call this shit out?
Idk why competition has tanked since they got more money. But the motivation to act as a competitive league is gone. It’s a weird rich club now.
Baseball and the NFL don’t have this problem. It’s very NBA specific.
Players don’t give a fuck about anything unless it’s about their contract.
Edit: It’s weird how some of yall will bitch about anything but the behavior of the players. Fuck yall in the replies. Same patsy ass losers as the players.
Players will do what they are incentivized to do, which is why the NBA has to fix the incentives.
They are trying way too hard to fix tanking and not nearly hard enough to fix the garbage product they currently have in their marquee playoff matchup.
It’s because the NBA markets players and personalities foremost.
They could honestly fix this shit in one game first time a no contact fall gets a warning 2nd is an ejection
I mean whatever happened to regular hard fouls. Not trying to injure a guy. But Shai never gets smacked.
Players don’t want their player who does it to get smacked.
It’s all this modern unwritten bullshit that has no place in basketball
Hard fouls of old are ruled flagrant like 50% of the time now. It’s no surprise that nobody does it anymore
I’ve had my finger pointed at Adam Silver for years
we do point the finger at the NBA. Silver knows and doesn’t care, he loves it.
They should have been doing it years ago. The players job is literally to win, they don’t have any incentive to be liked really. No shit they are going to flop like fish if the refs aren’t going to do anything about it, hell I would do it too if I could get a extra 3 points a game from it. People will point fingers at specific players but imo if you want to have competitive integrity then the finger needs to be pointed at the rule book and the refs.
The players job is literally to win, they don’t have any incentive to be liked really.
There is a thing called sportsmanship that some players still have, it’s not like they HAVE to flop on the ground to win.
I agree that the league takes some blame but the players do as well, only a small % are behaving this shamelessly.
I agree the refs have the most amount of power to drive change.
They don’t have to assign “flopping” fouls to offensive players, just don’t don’t call marginal contact and eventually dudes will get tired of hitting the ground repeatedly for no reason.
Conversely, on defense, call aggressive off ball fouls and dangerous on ball ones (eg the old push in the back as a dude goes for a layup) early in the quarter to put teams in the bonus. In the short term it will be disruptive; but over time players will learn that they’re gonna lose games on free throws and will start playing legit D
This is all league mandated. They get told points of emphasis by the league and they use those to guide their calls.
We already are, the problem is the NBA is so big they can drown it out.
they kinda are
That is a really good, concise summary lol
I just think it’s funny we have multiple national sport writers, pundits, and outlets saying “yeah the Thunder are excessively embellishing contact and it’s a problem” and you still have some fans saying “It’s only social media saying this”
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McCain jumping backwards into Castle last night AND getting the call had me screaming at the TV.
It wasn’t even a jump, he just threw his butt back and faceplanted before Harper even got to him.
Right after he threw an elbow into his throat too
Wasn’t the throat hit a flop? I saw some slow mo video of the hit Harper supposedly got on the throat, and the replay showed… Nope, he tried to sell it too.
Right?! Dude tripped the other guy and got shots for it.
McCain making OF content on the floor throwing it back at Harper.
the one in transition at halfcourt against Keldon Johnson too
I legitimately turned the game off at that point and just watched YouTube. I knew the spurs had no chance for a comeback at that point.
The 2016 Harden special
The jumping is a bit much but baiting a foul from a very up close but trailing defender is a long time vet move.
It’s nuts that so many people see how obvious it is but nothing changes and as a matter fact, these WCF have some of the highest ratings in a decade.
Why would the NBA change if people are tuning in?
The only thing that would cause them to do anything different is if fans stopped watching
There is a clip of Tim Legler saying this is all overblown posted here literally an hour ago, and he’s a lot more prominent of a NBA media figure than whoever the fuck Dennis Jr is. Not to mention all the actual NBA players who’ve said the same. You just found a clip of a ESPN nobody saying something you agree with and are claiming he represents “sports writers”
People love to complain and hate and just be miserable. I love sports and watching sports. Do I get upset about a blown call here and there of course. But it’s such a small footnote in my viewing experience. The SGA 17% article on falling was funny because I’m like so that means 83% he not falling. So 8⁄10 touches he’s upright but the couple times he falls it’s now “unwatchable” give me a break
I genuinely can’t imagine being a fan of the game of basketball and not recognizing how insane it is that SGA falls 17% of the time
I mean, the fact that Tim Legler is more prominent and calling the series means he has a lot more to lose by criticizing the NBA and its product.
You think it’s weird that media, who literally gets paid for click bait, would create click bait? Lmao
Like technically Stephen A Smith is a sport writer lol
Look the only real bait here is foul bait! Unethical Canadian-Oklahoman foul bait before our very eyes! Thank god Multiple National Sportswriters are on this.
The same sports outlets said Derrick Rose was better than Lebron James in 2011.
When you’re the villain on social media it’s hard to shed that tag.
You’ve also got dozens saying the opposite but that doesn’t help your loser narrative does it?
How many people that are legit ball knowers that are saying this? ESPN Writer Dennis Jr is not credible
Haliburton and Breen would disagree with you. There’s multiple people who see how yall hyperventilate and hyperbolize this as well and it just comes off as hate cause we win.
People here saying it’s only online but most fans I meet in person are even less reasonable than reddit. I don’t think I have met a single IRL NBA fan who actually likes the way the thunder play.
(I don’t live in Texas for all the people thinking I am asking random people in San Antonio lol.)
Well are you in San Antonio? That would certainly explain it
No, I am not.
I’m not a fan of either team but Thunder are tough watch. They grab, push and pull on defense but flop like fish on offense.
I mean they have a vested interest in driving engagement, whether its right or not, and this is the hot topic now. They don’t care if it’s actually right, they just want the engagement. This is disingenous when they don’t act like Spurs do the same thing too (mainly Wemby & Castle). Plus also discounting the fact that Castle is grabbing SGA all game off the ball that doesn’t get called either
the same sport writers like skip bayless and stephen A smith? These people make content to generate clicks. That’s why you see takes like 50 year old Jordan would beat 30 year old Lebron
Nah most of the big guys say the same thing, it’s overblown and it is.
Both these teams play damn near the exact same way.
You’ve got a bunch of hot take artists and dudes who are desperate for clicks and that really hurts any kind of plausibility the argument has. You get Legler to stop saying this shit is ridiculous and you’re cooking. You have random hack saying it and it’s a big ol’ yawn.
They also flop on every screen
Seems like people are having a really bad time watching the WCF this year
Game one was magical, wtf happened.
Fair refereeing favored the Spurs, that’s what happened
And it was an extremely close game. Think with fair reffing this would be an awesome series
League doesn’t like that… or just wants to manipulate the series so it goes 7 games.
Spurs weren’t supposed to win but Wemby was unstoppable.
Exactly, those 4th quarter calls were egregious. They had that game wrapped up and it took SO LONG for that quarter to end
I went to bed when it went to overtime.
Honestly game 5 was horrible to watch. Flopping every couple of minutes and more like 50% of the game was at the FT line. That is not a good product to watch
The two worst games this series were reffed by Tony Brothers. Not shocked at all. He intentionally calls games poorly. I bet Scott foster will be the ref for game 6 so spurs will win and hopefully we have a good game 7. The series has not been a fun watch.
Just wait until Brothers gets game 7
First game in the series I just turned off before halftime. Just lost all interest in it.
And if the Thunder do move on, I may just not watch the finals at all for the first time in a long time. Between an extremely unlikeable team and a hated rival, I truly will root for a meteor to hit MSG.
No!!! Say it ain’t so… If you don’t watch then I won’t enjoy it either
This is the Most-Watched WCF in history. People aren’t having a bad time. People are eating this shit up. Big Tech and social media has conditioned us to be more divisive. Algorithms prioritize engagement, which often translates to anger, polarization, and the creation of ideological tribes.
Grab your pitchfork and choose your tribe: SGA hate, NBA hate, OKC hate. The NBA must be loving it. It’s a real shame, because OKC and SGA do so many things that should be appreciated and enjoyed but instead they’re being watched just to be hated on.
Having such a bad time it’s one of the most viewed WCF’s ever lmfao
Hate watching is a thing
Well no wonder people are having a bad time then since it’s not a very successful hate watch thus far
Proper crash outs everywhere.
I’ve been enjoying it
I have never been happier to watch the east. Even if it is the Knicks in the finals
Honestly it’s all the manufactured hate that makes it insufferable. No one said anything about Cavs doing it even more than these teams mainly because they were losing lol
It’s really not that complicated. They play a certain way. And when faced with that same style they flail all over the place.
And it’s on the League for allowing it.
Edit: and that goes for everyone really. As soon as you accept that players get different whistles then the game is compromised.
Its interesting because the beginning of the games, they call it dead even and allow for all the contact. When OKC pulls ahead, and the spurs get within 8 or 9, then the officiating changes to tick tack fouls
It was so predictable in game 5. Every time the Spurs got momentum and could close the gap, suddenly multiple calls or no-calls to screw them over and maintain a double digit lead for the Thunder
Just give them ball directly to okc and ignore the coach screaming for a challenge. Easy.
And the fans have the right to criticize the players as well
Yup. People bring up Luka all the time. Fucking call that shit on him too. OKC fans think we want to see that cause it’s good for our team. I fucking hate it. Call it for every player. Call it fairly. If you let it go for OKC let it go from all teams. If you call it for OKC call it for all teams.
The way this narrative has grown is honestly scary lol modern social media and hivemind is crazy
Honestly it’s giving a good mirror reflection of the absurdity of America right now lol. There’s no logical thought, just pure emotional reaction that fits their agenda, whether it’s accurate or not lol
I keep telling myself it’s just sports so it doesn’t matter but I can’t help this feeling like you described. We’re all fucked and as algorithms continue to get better it will only get worse.
It’s a product that must be sold at the market.
It’s all a distraction anyway.
This sub is genuinely cooked. No different than r/nbatalk at this point
You know Reddit as a whole is botted to hell when like 8 different random ass NBA subreddits have started popping up on the front page
There is zero chance all of this discussion is organic
All these new variant subreddits are for training LLMs. It’s why there like 5 different “Explain The Joke” subs
what he’s saying here doesn’t even make sense, so apparently OKC’s offense draws bullshit fouls all the time, ok, that would mean high FT numbers. And apparently OKC’s defense gets away with murder in there constantly, well, that alongside an offense that draws a bunch of FTs SHOULD mean a higher FT amount for OKC than their opponents no?
Instead the numbers in this series are the Spurs with slightly more FTs, both theories can’t coexist with this being true lol, people need to pick one
I feel like the average person complaining watches an instagram or twitter clips of SGA falling on jumpers and their mind is made up on what is happening.
There’s actual discussions on the thunder being coached to flop lmfao. They just won that game without Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell, 2 big players for them. And people think the refs made that big of an impact to swing this series.
It’s confirmation bias, it belongs in psychology textbooks as a prime example.
If enough people complain, the narrative gets started and every viewer starts looking out for evidence that confirms their theory. So even if OKC flop at the same rate as say the knicks, every flop they see from OKC is proof that this is unwatchable and everything people say is true etc. etc.
It’s got to the point that the entire sub day after day, is obsessing over random clips of a role player bumping the defender on a drive, or a referee missing a challenge call and using it to fuel their hate.
The referee example’s the funniest because it has nothing to do with anyone on OKC but people are so worked up and furious that the hate overflows
It’s also the rise of AI and social media. Have you noticed when you search in Chat that it says “searching google, searching Reddit…” So complaints about the Thunder start trending on Reddit because fans of other teams are pissed, AI starts noticing trends, AI bots start posting to get engagement, “pundits” scan Reddit to see what’s trending, they then talk about what’s trending to get engagement, and then users post these clips on Reddit as rage bait. It’s a self feeding cycle. Ignoring the veracity of any of these posts, you can see how quickly a “trend” gets magnified in today’s social media/AI landscape.
And it feeds back into itself too, I’ve seen so many comments along the lines of “well everybody is complaining about it, and we can’t all be wrong, so it’s obviously the most egregious flopping ever!”
No actually, you can all be wrong.
r/NBA’s favorite fallacies:
Truly a masterclass
It’s actually absurd how over the top this discussion has got lol. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, do we embellish calls and flop? Yeah, but literally so does every other team in the NBA. Steph Castle has some of the most egregious head snapping and body flailing on drives I’ve seen in a minute, but not one goddamn think piece on that
The Spurs are playing just as physical as us on defense, and just to be clear I’m fine with that I want them to match our energy, but the entire discussion is how we are murderous thugs for it. Not our series but for God’s sake people were defending Wemby’s rage elbow on Naz Reid, I couldn’t believe it
They’ve made SGA and OKC the moral epicenter of something thats existed in the NBA for decades. And theyve been completely silent on the Spurs antics.
Your reasoning is flawed because you’re not controlling all the variables. If OKC is fouling at a higher rate but not getting called for fouls at the same rate, then we would still expect fouls called and FTs to be about the same between the teams.
I don’t see people complain about the FT disparity nearly as much. Certainly it’s annoying when it does work, but really it’s the aesthetic of watching it. Just like people didn’t like watching Harden hooking arms or whiplashing his head back, no one likes Gumby crumpling to the floor at a higher rate than anyone else that’s ever played the game.
Really the worst part is it gives the referees absolute control over their games and THAT is the biggest offense by far. They can call Shai’s phantom hurricane winds… or not. They could reign in Dort/Caruso on the defensive end… or let them go full Legion of Boom.
>I don’t see people complain about the FT disparity nearly as much.
Bro, be real. People complain about it all, they were harping about the FT amount until the numbers came up and then the narrative just molds. No one was specifying SGA falling to the ground until the article counting how many times he’s fallen came along and suddenly it’s ‘the main complaint people had about SGA was how much he fell down’.
There were and are a lot of people complaining about FT numbers, ffs the narrative the guy in this thread’s title proposes is one that complains about some whistle disparity, not aesthetics
Anyone who watches can see the disparity isn’t the problem. It’s bad faith defenders of the bullshit and morons who manage to both not watch games or the box score yet still decide to have an opinion.
And no. The comment from Dennis says nothing about the FT disparity.
”‘it’s hard to watch the thunder be so agressive, be so nasty, and then when they have the ball they just fall and the refs fall for it, this is an officiating problem’”
Please explain to me how the officiating problem isn’t related to FTs and fouls called.
One team can have lower fts and still be drawing more ticky tak fouls.
When people are complaining about the kinds of fouls that are committed and the rate at which refs actually call them you would need to look at uncalled fouls vs called fouls for both teams to actually check that.
This isn’t about OKC. I’m just saying that you cannot make any determination about what kinds of fouls are being called or not called on either side by just looking at the number of called fouls. It does not have the information you need.
You realize though that the Spurs are doing all the same things that the masses are complaining about with the thunder though right? Crazy strong physical defense? Embellishments to draw fouls? Castle and Wemby both do it with great success.
Its been going on since the dawn of basketball. I remember people saying Manu Ginobli was impossible to watch because he brought soccer flopping to basketball. You could either enjoy his greatness, or bitch about how he plays. Social media has just made bitching so much more prevalent these days.
As I said my comment is not about spurs and OKC specifically. I just get annoyed when fans try to use free throw number to prove something that they fundamentally cannot prove.
When it comes to players selling contact, I personally don’t really care that much. What I really don’t like is that refs are much more likely to call things when players flop around and fall down vs playing through contact.
I actually have seen it pretty clearly with Castle where his rookie year he was getting fouled just as much as he does now, but he wasn’t getting calls because he was playing through contact and not selling well.
It is just annoying that the most efficient way to play NBA basketball looks so ridiculous. Seems like something the association would want to fix, but they are more interested in creating a draft system more complicated than the cones of dunshire.
I can respect that opinion then.
Equal number of FTs does not mean anything per se. If one team -thunder in this case or any other team- is getting away with at least 10 calls in the game on defense, and flopping its way to 10 more FTs on offence, this statistically creates a 15 point swing.
Both teams may have shot 25 FTs each but the reality based ON THE RULES OF BASKETBALL should have been 15-35.
Stop quoting raw numbers as proof of biais - or unbiais. They do not tell the true story of the game and are irrelevant taken alone
I’ll walk you through this one since this seems complex for you.
Equal numbers of FTs can still mean a lot of things, what it can’t mean is all of the things at the same time.
So for example, if you want to argue about OKC’s offense getting a great whistle, SGA flops and gets weak calls, sure. That could happen within a context where FT numbers stay the same. All it would take is for the Spurs to be attacking a lot and getting fouls called on them.
Or if you want to argue that OKC’s defense gets away with a lot of uncalled fouling, that could also happen within a context where FT numbers stay the same. All it would take is for the Spurs to be playing great defense, not giving the Thunder many FTs.
These situations cant coexist. It’s what I said in my initial comment. I get that you’ve conditioned yourself to go “raw number that goes against my beliefs = meaningless” but you should think things through.
Unless you are like that other commenter, and what you are actually arguing is a situation like you described, where you think these equal numbers actually reflect some absurd discrepancy between both teams where the Spurs are attacking cleanly and non-stop to a point the refs can’t bail out ALL the fouling okc does so they still end up with a higher FT amount as the team that’s supposedly also favored by the refs on the other end, getting the easiest calls of all time.
Wake the fuck up dude.
craziest thing is how quiet it is in losses. like okc suddenly play a different style in games 1 and 4 & spurs played perfect but games 2, 3 and 5 is a massive conspiracy of silver riggin it for okc and every foul they drew was to frustrate san antonio.
i think it all stems from the rise of gambling addiction and blaming the best team in the nba for winning games this way
I’ve never experienced anything like it. Normally there’s at least a pretty prominent group of people that are able to cut through the bullshit and not get duped. If they exist in this case, they certainly aren’t commenting on reddit or Twitter
Thanks r/nba I definitely needed to see another post about this!
You want some Kuminga posts?
More Ben Simmons posts for old times sake
Kuminga won more games against the Knicks in these playoffs than the entire eastern conference
His defense at the end of game 3 was a masterclass.
Bring on the Josh Smith offseason breakfast posts
It’s the most important thing going on in Basketball rn. Sorry gang. There is no Bulls content to be discussed, maybe move on for the season if this bothers you.
Yeah and this is the exact problem. You think This is the most important thing going on right now in basketball? Not the fact there’s only three teams remaining to win a championship?
Bro we’re literally talking about the tree teams remaining and the fact they took nearly 40 free throws last game
Truly what else should we be talking about right now? I’m open to hearing it
Oh damn, the Thunder must not be playing dirty and flopping then. We don’t need any further context.
Huh, that’s wild you say it’s the highest differential. 2023 would have me believe that the Lakers/Warriors having a +53 differential would be a bigger number than 25. Where are you getting this historic stat?
As a neutral fan, I can truly say I don’t really give a fuck about the officiating in this series, and find the constant griping about “unwatchability” incredibly grating.
I’ve found this series super fun to watch. Has it been physical? Sure. But it’s not like that hasn’t been the case for tons of kick-ass playoff series before this. Folks should pull up a bad boy Pistons game or early 2000s Spurs game on YouTube sometime.
I echo this as a neutral. People watch Shai flopping tape on tiktok and come here acting like all he’s doing is flailing all over the place.
Like, are people seeing what Castle is doing to Shai off the ball?
I’ve noticed this with a lot of different media platforms, but people tunnel-vision hard onto things they dislike and ignore stuff that contradicts their beliefs. Pretty much every fan does it. The reality is, they hate the idea that Shai actually deserves to go to the line a lot this series with how he’s been guarded, or at the very least get his team closer to the bonus significantly faster than they’ve been. Castle has rarely had moments where he isn’t just excessively grabbing and holding off-ball or hand-checking and hitting wrist on-ball. Hell, last night, Shai had like 3 turnovers from getting fouled and losing his handle alone.
The fact that people have fixated on fall percentages or some shit when he has players step under him half the time without any whistle whatsoever besides one on McLaughlin is genuinely kind of crazy. They’re doing pretty much anything they can to paint OKC as this uphill battle to overcome alongside the reffing and it just tells me they don’t have any idea what they’re actually watching because they only want to see what they see.
I don’t really want to see a free throw fest, but this whole series has set a precedent for players that they can foul on-ball on the perimeter a fuck ton and it’s honestly hurt the product a lot and keeps players like Shai, Castle, Wemby, and Chet from doing exciting plays without either getting hurt, or getting penalized by hard fouls. There needs to be a balance and the refs at least dropped the ball on that front, from an entertainment standpoint.
If you have a Thunder flair, you’ll get downvoted to oblivion at the mere mention of what Castle does off ball.
Ngl i think the hate that is directed at OKC in particular for this has become incredibly overblown at this point
Absolute truth. Horrible watch.
The spurs have a +11 FT advantage on the series and castle arguably plays more physical than any player on OKC. This take is getting old
Castle has shot 39 free throws and has 61 FG attempts across 5 games
Shai has shot 51 free throws and has 98 FG attempts across 5 games
Shai’s the unethical flopper tho
This is a terrible take because you’re assuming it should be equal. Hard obvious fouls like those on wemby should be called. Literally jumping into someone and falling yourself should not.
I made no assumption. Wemby and castle flop just as much as any OKC player.
More. The Spurs like to do the Harden head flick on contact. All their ball handlers seem to do it.
No, you’re not getting it. It’s ethical basketball and justified when Wemby and Castle flop, but any OKC players that flop should be burned at the stake. Come on, at least try to be reasonable here.
Nah
Suprise, suprise… Having Caruso, cason Wallace, and hartenstein grab-hold-pull-push wemby led to spurs having more fts…
Then they’re getting called for the fouls? So what’s the gripe?
there’s a difference between playing physical and flopping
So what Wemby is doing is physical?
As a neutral fan of the series I honestly think both sides have been beating each other down. SGA and Chet flop but I see Castle and Wemby doing it plenty as well, not sure why that’s ignored
I can admit that both Chet and SGA flop.
I can admit that AC, Cason, Dort, etc play crazy physical defense.
I cannot comprehend that people can watch the Spurs play and not think they are doing all the same things. Wemby and Castle are great at flopping. Castle and Harper and others are great at the same physical defense the Thunder play.
All true
It’s ignored because the vast majority of nba fans don’t watch the games lol nobody’s clipping castle or Wemby flops
NBA more than any other sport is mainly followed through social media clips and highlights
Not this shit again lol. This is getting tiring even as someone who vastly prefers the Spurs than OKC.
Once the media latch onto a narrative everybody just piles on.
My favorite time to go to this sub is after an OKC win because everybody gets so salty and start posting talking heads that only do these for the engagement that support their narratives.
And that goes both ways whether you support the Thunder or not. LOL
It used to be the media shaping public perception and now it’s the opposite. The media will push the narratives the social media algorithms determined will generate the most engagement. Scary times.
Teams just want consistency.
Either swallow the whistle or call everything
Kinda like the third quarter of game 3? I’m sure that’s the product NBA fans love watching
are you little kids going to upvote this kind of dumb shit after every thunder win? I
original thought
I’m seeing a ton of grabbing and pushing by Spurs too, why do these arguments seem so bias for the sake of engagement..? More and more baby crying noises now that OKC is up 3-2.
I still don’t know why it’s their problem though, they’re just trying to win the game. If that’s the way the nba officiates why not take advantage of it.
That’s why at the end of the clip he says it’s an officiating problem
People don’t watch 30 second clips lmao
Because YOU ALL here in this thread treat it like a team and fans problem
“It’s an officiating problem…” did you watch the whole video? I don’t think anyone is arguing that they’re not doing it to win games. It’s just not fun to watch. No one is saying it’s “their problem”, it simply sucks as an entertainment product.
Nah it’s ass. If the law says stealing isn’t against the law it don’t mean you taking my shit ain’t wrong. Saying “game is game” when you can easily just not be a dickhead isn’t the best argument.
I’m with you there. It’s taking the games and bending the rules whilst still not breaking them. It’s not against the rules, but it’s not in the spirit of the game. Some other sports have expectations around that - like Cricket for example. In soccer, they’d call it shithousing.
I can explain this. You see the NBA is a business that wants to attract fans, sell TV rights, and sell merchandise. If the games are horrible, the NBA and all the teams lose out on revenue. But you are right that there’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma going on here.
As opposed to “Oh I ran into your elbow”?
Even JJ reddick admitted they’re good at not fouling. That doesn’t mean they don’t foul. It means they’re more disciplined than most other teams. Spurs are also very disciplined, but you can see a young guy liek Castle get frustrated and undisciplined at times.
The Thunder are a very good at basketball. It’s ok to admit this.
I love both these teams, btw. I am enjoying watching basketball. most of r/nba likes watching referees.
I don’t blame SGA. He’s being a smart savvy player by gaming the system. Every great player foul baits to a certain degree. But this is 2 years in a row of him doing it at an MVP level with everybody watching.
It’s clearly gone too far.
I’m a Mavs fan and idgaf who wins. But watching these 2 great teams spend 40 minutes at the free throw line is just bad entertainment.
He’s not any worse than Luka, and the discourse surrounding him was never this bad - like Luka would actively whine to the refs mid-game at the expense of getting back on defence.
Luka drives me insane dude. I’d much rather watch Shai fall down a bunch without saying a peep than Luka’s constant whining at the refs and pissy attitude
Is this guy just reading reddit comments? 😂
I would feel embarrassed to work for ESPN and make this.
Gone from world wide leader in sports to scraping the bottom of the barrel for engagement bait?
Pathetic.
That’s basically the crux of it. The double standard is miserable
This OKC paradigm shift is crazy.
The start of the season OKC had the bball world in awe after a hot start.
From when Joke got injured, Shai ran away with MVP to really no pushback for 3⁄4 of the season.
Then… Wemby happened. The negative noise around OKC/SGA definitely has coincided with Wemby’s ascension.
OKC were 8-0 walking the playoffs. Now they’re triffling scoundrels because it’s Wenby time.
Let’s keep it real, SGA was just a stop gap until people felt Wemby was as good as Jokic. The switch up was imminent. The basketball world didn’t REALLY want to like OKC or Shai being this dominant.
NBA is unwatchable it’s not just the Thunder. They just get the most heat because they’re winning
OKC’s mentality is to flood the zone w questionable tactics on defense because they know the refs cannot and will not call everything, so they get away with a lot
Spurs foul too. This sub is pathetic
Who
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
What’s even worse is the people in this thread complaining that this shit is overblown. Get the fuck out of here. It’s fucking horrible to watch this garbage. Call the game properly. Either let both teams make hard fouls or call everything for both teams. Preferably call techs on all the flopping and foul baiting and see how quickly it stops.
I mean, that is literally the crux of it. You have OKC playing hard defense, noone has a problem with that.
But their opponents play hard defense back and OKC are all collectively just flying like they are selling WWE moves.
Exactly.
Will the NBA do anything about it tho?
None. Ratings are up. Gambling revenue and sponsorships are up. So, it won’t change imo.
shai doesn’t even glance at the basket on some drives, he just runs face first into the ground xD
Imagine being an OKC fan 😂
Everyone hates my team and the world has an existential crisis when they win. It literally can’t get any better. It’s like we’re beating 29 fanbases with each victory.
ESPN can run 24⁄7 rage bait perfectly catered and calculated to reflect the online feeding needs of the agony obsessed doom scrolling addicts. The seething and hate only makes the wins that much more enjoyable
It’s pretty dope, all this hate is pure comedy
Lots of apologists in here. Happens all the time in the NFL with reffing too. The reason why both leagues can put out garbage. Prolly the same people keeping shitty fanatic afloat. “Ya so what if it disintegrates in four washes? It’s not a big deal I’m tired of people complaining about it.”
ESPN is setting up shop for an all time hate watch finals series
He is not wrong…
this is so fucking lazy
Assholes are rewarded. It’s at the core of modern American culture.
Thunder play like the Detroit Bad Boys on defense and just fucking fall down on offense. I like how in game 5 Mccain just fucking elbows Dylan Harper in the neck and they call the foul on Harper. This is why people hate OKC.