Refs new "freedom of movement" rule bans defenders from grabbing off ball cutters like Curry and Klay!!!

[Wagonband]

I'm all for them doing this, but if you are cleaning up this part of the game, as mentioned, you have to clean up the illegal screens as well.

Currently it worked as sort of a quid pro quo; i let you grab players, but i also let you make an illegal screen. If they clean up both of these things, the game will be much better; less fatigue for the players as well, which is no small part in this in my mind either.

[yoyoboy]

If the league is still intent on pretending like moving screens aren't a thing yet calling all kinds of off the ball roughness, then offenses are only going to become even harder to stop. Capela, Bogut, Draymond, and others have taken this to ridiculous levels in recent years and other bigs are following suit. I'm really not loving this trend towards making the game even more one-dimensional than it already is, with the entire focus being to create an open look from three below the break.

Not to mention bigger players trying to post up are still allowed to be mauled down low ESPECIALLY when smaller guys like Curry, Paul, Beverley, etc, switch onto them. The refs tend to allow all of that to slide since they're more physically disadvantaged and it doesn't seem like it's affecting the offensive player, but all of these rule changes and the way they're actually enforced are leading to the perimeter game becoming way too emphasized. And I guess it's about making a product that's more fun to watch for casual fans, but personally I love a variety of attacks because it makes the game more unpredictable and exciting.

[Mujahydeen]

This is why it drives me nuts when the fans of now talk about how much better then stars of today are as opposed to the stars of yesterday. The stars of today look better because of the rules that artificially inflate offense. How good would Curry or Klay look against the bad boy Pistons or Rileys Knicks?

Actually, the Illegal Defense and rule-enforced spacing in the 90s and early 2000s artificially inflated offensive impact of big men and 1v1 scorers, leading to static, isolation-heavy game. There is no coming back to it though, as the understanding of the game has changed, and bringing back illegal defense would now benefit Curry, Durant and Harden the most.

[Franco]

This is getting ridiculous.

Yes the game is about basketball skills, but physicality is also a part of the game and they should deal with it. Unless players are making some JaVale level shenanigans during off-ball screens and are dangerous to everyone on the court, there should be a high level of tolerance for fouls on screens.

I mean, what next? Let’s also give players a foul for posterizing someone since they might get hurt while landing or hurt the guys they dunked on. GTFO

[LAvision]

It's the same thing happening in the NFL. All these leagues just want the high shootout possible. Higher scores = more casuals

[C3H6N6O6]

All these people who cry about off the ball grabs should first cry about moving screens which force these defenders to grab offensive players so they don't have to go through a moving screen.

[Dominator83]

It's the same thing happening in the NFL. All these leagues just want the high shootout possible. Higher scores = more casuals

That's the problem. The casuals love the high scoring. While the real fans that appreciate the game, wanna see Balance and the game being played the way it was meant to be. Chess matches with different teams trying to impose their contrasting styles. The casuals want all 30 teams to look like the 2000's Suns, Kings, and mavericks.

2010 NBA finals was the most entertaining non-Bulls (homer) finals I've ever seen. The Lakers scored 103 in game 1, Celtics scored 102 in game 2. Those were the only 2 times in 7 games that either team reached 100. Game 7 of that final was the most entertained I've ever been for any non-Bulls game. The score? 83-79! It was a grind out slugfest where both teams made each other fight tooth and nail for every basket. The casuals would think that series was boring

They were calling the Warriors/Cavs finals games where it was constantly in the 120's "beautiful basketball". What I saw were disgusting games that lacked any kind of defensive resistance. Those type of games are cool once in a while, but night after night it gets old

[og15]

So many fouls called last night
They wanna speed up the game but these rules smh

There's always an adjustment, the idea is to get the players to understand it will be a foul and therefore stop doing it. They will usually over-enforce it in pre-season to get the point across. Generally the players adjust to a degree, but the refs also can become more lax in calling it as time goes on.

Yea, it is fouling, but I think there should be some allowed contact and physicality off ball as long as it isn't excessive, however excessive is defined.

[r0drig0lac]

of course, in an league where you can not play defense, we'll give more weapons to the offenses ..

[DaddyCool19]

Yeah I would prefer them calling the moving screens first instead of this.

[JN61]

Sigh. Bad change. League just labels to offensive player these days, it's even silly to have arguments ith kids these days when they use arguments like efficient of todays players vs players in past... Of course one shoots godlike when defenders cant defend.

[Fat]

Early cheers to your championship warrior fans

[on7on8]

https://youtu.be/ZnfL60mG7g0?t=10


0:10 mark

Even Paul Pierce says he enjoys offense more instead of guys beating up each other. Stop hating on the new era guys!

[Gooner]

Maybe he is still traumatized from that situation when Artest pulled his shorts down.

[lambchop]

Pierce is just ESPN's Charles Barkley. But yea as long as AD, LBJ, Westbrook have 6 to 10 more free throw attempts per game, it's all good

[r0drig0lac]

who cares what Pierce thinks?

[Hugi Mancura]

I think this is great change. They just give off the ball players same rights as ball handler all ready had as they should. People should be equal in front of the law (or front of basketball rules in this case). Does this cause the offense to increase? Sure it does, it makes scoring easier, so expect increase of points and shooting%'s on most teams. Couple years the situation has been 'you can't touch the ball handler, but off the ball you can do anything you want'. This created a situation where ball movement and team oriented offense suffered greatly and teams were almost forced to play iso ball or p&r. But because there is only a limited number of good iso/p&r players teams who didn't have those players pretty much had only one choice, tanking to find one. Now if they really follow this it gives teams that have better ball movement to become better, and you don't necessary need stars to become good. You just might need really good game plan with good plays and you might actually challenge teams with multiple stars.

People who are against this would you really like to see that kind of holding they do off the ball to happen on ball handler? Two arms around offensive player. Even Lebron couldn't score in that situation. If you don't want to see this on the ball situation why you want see this kind of holding off the ball? Only reason I think is that people are afraid that GSW will dominate even more and teams like Lebron and Houston will lose their fighting change against them (or Boston). Unless Lebron have stated he want's to play this year more off the ball, which would mean this rule would make Lebron scoring easier.

[blitzbolt2]

This is basically a giant middle finger to defensive teams.

It's fair to say Grit and Grind its officially over.
Rip Memphis Grizzlies

[PistolPeteJR]

I think this is great change. They just give off the ball players same rights as ball handler all ready had as they should. People should be equal in front of the law (or front of basketball rules in this case). Does this cause the offense to increase? Sure it does, it makes scoring easier, so expect increase of points and shooting%'s on most teams. Couple years the situation has been 'you can't touch the ball handler, but off the ball you can do anything you want'. This created a situation where ball movement and team oriented offense suffered greatly and teams were almost forced to play iso ball or p&r. But because there is only a limited number of good iso/p&r players teams who didn't have those players pretty much had only one choice, tanking to find one. Now if they really follow this it gives teams that have better ball movement to become better, and you don't necessary need stars to become good. You just might need really good game plan with good plays and you might actually challenge teams with multiple stars.

People who are against this would you really like to see that kind of holding they do off the ball to happen on ball handler? Two arms around offensive player. Even Lebron couldn't score in that situation. If you don't want to see this on the ball situation why you want see this kind of holding off the ball? Only reason I think is that people are afraid that GSW will dominate even more and teams like Lebron and Houston will lose their fighting change against them (or Boston). Unless Lebron have stated he want's to play this year more off the ball, which would mean this rule would make Lebron scoring easier.

No, the problem with this is simple: if you're going to call fouls like this, then call fouls in favour of people packing it in the paint, getting mauled night after night. Because they're bigger, it's okay, but because these offball shooters a la Curry, Redick, Thompson, etc., are smaller guys, they aim to protect David while largely ignoring the beatings Goliath takes regularly.

[Hugi Mancura]

All these people who cry about off the ball grabs should first cry about moving screens which force these defenders to grab offensive players so they don't have to go through a moving screen.

But they grab even without screens and this happens 10 times more often than screens. Every team does moving screens equally, but people just tend to see those cases where team they hate is doing it, but ignore the cases where their team is the doer. Off course teams who do more screens do moving screen more often, but if we would look only as how big percentage of screens are illegal I think the number would be same with every team (90%).

In theory this change could cause referees to call moving screens more often too, because same techniques used in defensive grabbing is also used in screen grabbing.