2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[eminence]

A) Obviously bummed the Wolves are down 1-3

B) A drum I'm going to continue beating - it is miserable to watch 'basketball' games where at the end both teams are incentivized to foul and turn it into a FT shooting contest. Not sure on the fix, but it sucks.

[Special_Puppy]

Depth of Talent on OKC is incredible. Aaron Wiggins would be getting 30 minutes per game on most playoff teams and he got a DNP-CD tonight

[tone wone]

Extremely physical game. Tons of contact allowed pretty much all over (hand-checks on drives, contact on finishes, clutching and on screens) and yet 128-126 in regulation with both teams shooting over .50% from the field.

Honestly, given the context, this might be the best offensive game of the entire year. None of this was easy.

[jalengreen]

Great, great game. For as how “over” it felt after G2 regarding OKC’s outclassing of MIN, this was very close to being 2-2.

I have no idea how but it just feels like they have to get rid of fouling up 3. It really just sucks.

That ending was bizarre - was it a “it would have been 0.3 when it hit the ground” call? Would make sense but never heard of that lol

[TheGOATRises007]

That was the best game of the playoffs IMO.

OKC look primed for the title.

[TheGOATRises007]

Depth of Talent on OKC is incredible. Aaron Wiggins would be getting 30 minutes per game on most playoff teams and he got a DNP-CD tonight

I agree with this, but without Minnesota's bench production this game, this would have been a blowout.

NAW was insane and DDV was bombing threes like a New Yorker.

If Randle/ANT were just above average, this series is 2-2.

[Special_Puppy]

That was the best game of the playoffs IMO.

OKC look primed for the title.

Milwaukee vs Pacers Game 5 was the best so far IMO

[AEnigma]

I don't think any player has ever made me eat as much crow as '25 PO Randle.

Saved it all for this game.

[Doctor MJ]

A) Obviously bummed the Wolves are down 1-3

B) A drum I'm going to continue beating - it is miserable to watch 'basketball' games where at the end both teams are incentivized to foul and turn it into a FT shooting contest. Not sure on the fix, but it sucks.

I don’t think it’s actually hard to fix the end of game foul situation, just make it so the team fouled gets the ball back.

There are details to consider to do it optimally, but so long as you can’t get the ball back by fouling, you won’t have those free throw slogs to end the game.


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[sp6r=underrated]

The challenge system made NBA basketball worse. NBA games already have a gameflow issue with all the breaks. We give teams an inordinate amount of timeouts and timeout breaks are too long. The NBA seemingly doesn't care about games starting on time.

The challenge system has made all these problems worse because now coaches are allowed to challenge calls on the court. They are allowed to challenge subjective calls on the court. The refs stall the game to give coaches a chance to decide whether they want to review. There is no limit on how long the review lasts.

It is crippling gameflow in a league that already has a gameflow issue. My proposed change.

1. In the Regular Season, no challenges are allowed.

One NBA RS game doesn't matter that much. And this would be true if we shortened the RS to 30 games. And one possession in a 100 possession game doesn't mater much either. In the RS, refs calls should be allowed to stand without review. It is much more important to have an enjoyable experience for fans via a well-moving game than spending 2-4 minutes determining whether contact is incidental.

This board is made up of hardcore fans. Lots of fans are casuals and I'm extremely skeptical casual sports fans really care that much about calls the way hardcore fans do.

2. In the Post-Season, two challenges are allowed per series.

Challenges should be a big deal and strictly limited. The point of challenges is to overturn clearly bad calls in a high value situations. It shouldn't be for 5 minutes into the 2nd quarter on an out-of-bounds call. Who cares? Even if the ref got it wrong there are 100 possessions per game.

3. The referees aren't allowed to stall the game to give coaches an opportunity to challenge.

The decision to challenge should be made by coaches on the floor not a team of guys staring at TV sets. I oppose challenges but the point of challenges was to overturn clearly wrong calls. If a call is clearly wrong you shouldn't need a team to review every camera angle.

4. During challenge reviews, there is a 2 minute clock. If the clock expires, the call on the court stands.

[sp6r=underrated]

B) A drum I'm going to continue beating - it is miserable to watch 'basketball' games where at the end both teams are incentivized to foul and turn it into a FT shooting contest. Not sure on the fix, but it sucks.

The point of a rulebook is to encourage the optimal style of play for fan enjoyment. Auto fouling is horrible for fan enjoyment. My challenge to discourage auto-fouling.

End of Game Situations

Rule 1. Any foul committed by a team with a 3 point lead, with under ten seconds to go behind the 3-point line counts as in the act of shooting.

NBA fans want to see teams have a chance to shoot a game tying shot. If you made this change fans would at least be assure of one potential, game-tying shot.

Rule 2. The winning team retains possession of the ball after the second foul committed by the losing team with less than 24 seconds to go.

This change gives teams one chance for fouling and if it fails the game basically ends. It is a good change.

Hack a Shaq

Rule 1. If a team in the penalty fouls a player off the ball who shoots less than 55% from the free throw line, the player fouled get 3 free throw attempts to make 2 and his team retains possession of the ball.

[Clyde Frazier]

A) Obviously bummed the Wolves are down 1-3

B) A drum I'm going to continue beating - it is miserable to watch 'basketball' games where at the end both teams are incentivized to foul and turn it into a FT shooting contest. Not sure on the fix, but it sucks.

Obviously "playing the foul game" isn't anything new, but fouling when up 3 absolutely makes for a worse product. Ruins the flow of the game even further and it's just more fun to see teams try to tie the game with 3s. The only real solution would be to make intentional fouls by the team up 3+ illegal. They already do it with hack-a-whoever so it's not out of the question.

[Texas Chuck]

I think you know not what you ask for. If you make the rule, the team getting fouled gets the ball back, then comebacks are over. It stops being a 48 minute game. Teams would just hold the ball knowing there was nothing you could do. That's not better, more entertaining basketball.

Fouling is a team not just conceding. And look just at this playoffs and the amazing comebacks we have seen you would remove.

I think its way too overblown and it quickly just becomes the groupthink of the moment.

We saw this when the Texas teams jumped way up in the lottery. Suddenly everyone hates the lottery and it needs a complete overhaul. Until the next tweet then everyone rushes to the next Chicken Little moment.

Its fine.

[eminence]

Teams who are down intentionally fouling sucks too for what it's worth. Arguably sucks more because it's so much more common.

Also agreed that challenges haven't improved my viewing experience.

[sp6r=underrated]

I think you know not what you ask for. If you make the rule, the team getting fouled gets the ball back, then comebacks are over. It stops being a 48 minute game. Teams would just hold the ball knowing there was nothing you could do. That's not better, more entertaining basketball.

I'm fine with not allowing teams to foul endlessly in the final 24 seconds. As I said below you give teams one chance at the foul game and that's it.

Rule 2. The winning team retains possession of the ball after the second foul committed by the losing team with less than 24 seconds to go.

This change gives teams one chance for fouling and if it fails the game basically ends. It is a good change.

My critique of the foul game is the same as my critique of the challenge system: game flow matters. Basketball isn't a sport like football or baseball in which the majority of the game is players standing around doing nothing. It is supposed to be a continuous action game. That's the appeal of the sport. The foul game breaks that up.

We saw this when the Texas teams jumped way up in the lottery. Suddenly everyone hates the lottery and it needs a complete overhaul. Until the next tweet then everyone rushes to the next Chicken Little moment.

This is a poor analogy. There were two camps who attacked the lottery after Dallas won it:

1. Conspiracy theorists who think the lottery was fixed. As I've said before these folks are idiots who based on their own belief system are wasting their time following the NBA.
2. Folks who've never supported a lottery and want a ranked order draft. I completely disagree with this camp but they are pretty open about supporting tanking and being okay with teams like Hinkie's Sixers. If you think tanking is fine then a draft lottery is a mistake.

[Texas Chuck]

This is a poor analogy. .

All analogies suck. Or are at least always going to be imperfect. I'm not saying the origins are the same, though I guess I kinda am in that so much discourse starts with one loud voice saying something(Nick Wright is today's winner) and then it gets everyone all wound up on that topic. Until SGA gets a soft call and then we all rush back over to complain about that, or whatever the "tragedy" of the day is.

I just fundamentally disagree its a huge problem. I disagree that major rule changes like this are going to lead to a better product. It may solve this one issue but it creates new ones. Worse ones imo. At least when the NFL massively changed the onside kick rules their concern was player safety, but they accepted that it was going to cut down on exciting finishes and comebacks as a result. And get rid of the excitement of the surprise one. Their product is also far more bullet proof so they can constantly just try stuff out knowing their ratings are going nowhere.

[sp6r=underrated]

This is a poor analogy. .

All analogies suck. Or are at least always going to be imperfect. I'm not saying the origins are the same, though I guess I kinda am in that so much discourse starts with one loud voice saying something(Nick Wright is today's winner) and then it gets everyone all wound up on that topic. Until SGA gets a soft call and then we all rush back over to complain about that, or whatever the "tragedy" of the day is.

I just fundamentally disagree its a huge problem. I disagree that major rule changes like this are going to lead to a better product. It may solve this one issue but it creates new ones. Worse ones imo. At least when the NFL massively changed the onside kick rules their concern was player safety, but they accepted that it was going to cut down on exciting finishes and comebacks as a result. And get rid of the excitement of the surprise one. Their product is also far more bullet proof so they can constantly just try stuff out knowing their ratings are going nowhere.

Agree to disagree but I'm in the camp NBA games are very boring in the final 2 minutes due to all the stoppages. And if you're in my camp the rule changes I proposed make sense.

[Doctor MJ]

So these guys were almost certainly voting for Hali here based in part on the discrepancy between the accolades he earned when he was playing well previously and how he played to start this season.

Perhaps. But I'm also more with falco and think that Haliburton is just disliked by a bunch of players for his on-court behavior, and they voted for him as most overrated primarily for petty reasons and to get back at him. Anonymous surveys among players I'm sure are ripe with votes based on personal animosities and amities.

Another part of the equation could be that Haliburton doesn't play like your traditional superstar and has very apparent limitations in areas in which many previous superstars (especially Guards) excelled. From this more traditional view, which I am sure is still widespread among players too, I can see how they could genuinely believe that a player with Haliburton's skillset just isn't all that great.

That's the question indeed.

Part of why players underrate Gobert is because they literally dislike him. He's a foreigner - which makes it harder to fit in - and the Covid incident displayed a real lack of common sense regardless of where you're from. Combine that with the reports of antagonism from inside the Jazz, and the fact that players don't actually remember a time when defense was how you became the most valuable player in basketball, and it's close to a perfect storm.

So then the question is whether Hali is disliked like that. Not suggesting it's the same intensity, but if Hali's been singled out as basically the most disliked young American star by NBA players that's quite noteworthy - and all the more so because I think everyone who's ever been on his team has loved him and he doesn't open his mouth and say stupid s**t.

[sp6r=underrated]

the fact that players don't actually remember a time when defense was how you became the most valuable player in basketball, and it's close to a perfect storm.

Poole stated to Draymond before the punch "you're an expensive backpack for 30." That doesn't justify the punch but the comment that Draymond is a "backpack" only make sense from the context you described above, defense isn't that important on an individual level. Poole's attitude isn't unique among players or fans.

[parsnips33]

Draymond literally fighting to keep the legacy of defense alive in the NBA, the hero we all deserve