oaklandwarriors wrote:And please no one bring up "good at drawing fouls". This shouldn't even exist. Calls should be made equally to all players. If it's a foul it's a foul. Not these superstar calls. Normally, if you're good at drawing fouls it means you play like a wuss entertaining for the refs rather than the fans. I think that sums up Harden.
This is simply not a statement grounded in realism. Do you honestly think that if you played LeBron one-on-one you'd be equally likely to foul each other? The root of players fouling is that they are afraid of getting burned. A player good at drawing fouls is good at making his defender feel like he's going to get burned. That is most definitely a skill.
I understand you feel like these fouls are NOT fouls, but Harden is not being singled out by conspiracy here. He's working the same strikezone as everyone else, and so are his defenders. The defenders know what gets called for fouls. They know what not to do. Their coaches may defend them in public, but in private they are saying "You' leave yourself wide open when you do X, don't let him trick you into making that move." They do it anyway against Harden. It's not a coincidence, it's a skill.
You want to improve the ref'ing, that's awesome. I'm not going to defend it except to say: Ref'ing is very, very hard. My sympathies to the crews, but it's still the players job to help his team. Whatever can be done to help the refs I'm for it, but stuff like this will always be a part of the game. No coach worth a damn would refuse it as a part of his strategy, so it's hard for me to see it as practical for anyone else to do so.
I think to myself how many calls would he have gotten if they were calling them tougher.
