clyde21 wrote:infintybeyond wrote:clyde21 wrote:
What the hell are you talking? Basketball is not a contact sport. Holding, tugging and mugging people off-ball just because you can't keep up with them isn't basketball. In any sense.
Basketball is a contact sport. It's not as violent as football or hockey, but there has always been contact. It's always been a defensive tactic to grab and hold great off ball players to slow them down a little. You see it at every level from grade school to the pros. A little grabbing and holding is allowed. These guys aren't mugged. Go watch prime Shaq in the post to see a mugging. He was mugged plenty. The league just wants to give offensive players an even bigger advantage especially when coupled with illegal screens.
Even if you want to classify it as a 'contact sport' (as if that means anything, it's an ambiguous term more than anything), does it justify players mugging and pulling other players off-ball when they've been beat? That's not basketball, and to pretend otherwise is odd.
They aren't mugged. That's extreme. They are grabbed and held. A little grabbing and holding has always been allowed. It is a tactic to slow them down a little bit while they run you through screen after screen after screen. You see it at every level. Players grab and hold all the time. You just can't get caught with arms extended and a hand full of jersey.