Over the past decade, it’s become obvious that the NBA has approached European Soccer levels of flopping. Every time a gust of wind flows through the arena, half the players on the court fall over and look to the refs for a whistle. But honestly, I don’t blame the players, it’s the leagues fault for letting this occur. They’ve tried to coddle their star players and allowed them to dictate how the game is called.
Recently, the NBA has decided to crack down on flopping…which means they call it once a week. And while I applaud this effort, they are still missing the bigger issue which is players initiating contact and then complaining if they don’t get the call. You see it every game, players creating contact, throwing up a shot, and looking to the refs for a whistle….which more often then not they get.
Now there’s two different versions of this play. First is when a player pump fakes, gets the defender in the air, and then leans into them for the foul while they are shooting. I’m not a fan of this, but I get it, the defender shouldn’t have left his feet so its on them. This is the Steph Curry or Kemba Walker specialty and as a Celtics fan, I laugh when Kemba gets away with it.
Yes, the other play is annoying, but what play I think the NBA needs to eliminate is when a player is driving to the hoop, and they literally change course to make contact with a defender in order to get the foul call. This is straight European Soccer level crap, and I don’t know why the NBA hasn’t done something about it.
But here’s the thing, Paul George officially let the cat out of the bag last night when complaining about his lack of free throws. Normally, when asked about “flopping” or “creating contact” players deny it, and say they were just making a basketball play. It’s almost an unwritten rule by the players not to acknowledge what we all know they do.
But last night, George came clean and said exactly what we all know, he’s searching for foul calls and thank god the refs didn’t give them to him. This isn’t good for the game of basketball, and the NBA should address it. If an offensive player is searching out contact, it should be an offensive foul.
People love the game of basketball, there’s nothing better than a close game coming down to the final plays. But we are all getting tired of the amount of whining that occurs over the course of a game. Lebron James is by far the worst, he lowers his head and goes barreling to the basketball searching for fouls on 9-10 players a game. And if he doesn’t get the whistle, he immediately complains. Don’t believe, for this blog I wanted a photo of him complaining, and this is what I found with a simple search.
So to sum it up, the NBA needs to get a handle on their officiating and actually decide how the game should be called. If an offensive player is barreling into people, it should be an offensive foul.
