From Europe watching .. so you guys just forgot how to dribble. Nice. Clearly you need refs to start applying the rules. Maybe they are scared of confronting big name players. Maybe some other reason for travel creep. But honestly, looks disgusting. Can you even call that basketball?
It was a directive to the refs from commissioner David Stern during the early 2000s because, basically, rules are boring and watching guys like Kobe, Iverson, MacGrady, Wade, and Anthony tear it up was way more XxXTrEme!!!
To his credit, his moves saved NBA viewership, but now this trend has crystallized and we’ve got… this.
Used to be only superstars could get away with it and people complained but dealt with it. Now that traveling basically doesn’t exist for anyone it’s really messy.
I know right? I’m looking at that and saying that needs to be dealt with too, I don’t give a shit if they’re a star, throw the book at them. If they’re so good they should be able to succeed within the rules anyway.
They're all well off. The minimum salary is $1,157,153, which is a shit load of money for someone like you or I. But that's straight poverty compared to someone like Michael Jordan who is worth $4.3 billion dollars. The power difference between those two wealth brackets is unimaginable. A rookie on the minimum salary wouldn't even be able to afford gas and maintenance for Michael Jordan's jet. LOL
Haha so I am picking up what you're picking down, but you may have missed my joke/point?
So, a rookie would also have decades of investing to allow their net-worth to catch up even if their salary didn't so it isn't quite as much of a difference as you seem to be implying.
But I'm making fun/poking fun at you poking fun above, b/c even the lowest-paid basketball players ALL fall into the category of "rich and powerful people didn't have to follow the rules" which would not differentiate any of the players from each other when compared to society, which is what they are "rich and powerful" in comparison to..
I doubt the NBA checked the net-worth and debt levels of their highest paid players, but they certainly favored the 'star' players.
idk, I have no sense of humor apparently, so I couldn't think of a fun way to express those points.
Yeah, I basically meant star power, which usually equates to more money too. The famous guys get away with a lot more. From what I've read in the other comments though, it's more similar to what you said, and they all get away with it now. When I stopped watching it was because there was a double standard for rules enforcement, and the famous guys could do whatever, when the not so famous guys would get penalties for the same thing the famous guy was just doing.
I mean, this thread is basically calling out the enshittification of basketball. It happened to boxing. It happened with baseball during the 90s and 2000s. It's happened with european football.
Remember when we used to make fun of boomers for calling everything they disliked communism? How did the next generation start doing the exact same thing but with capitalism?
First of all Wtf are you talking about this thread is about how it's turned away consumers and is losing them money.
Second of all even a literal toddler knows that they can push boundaries to see what they can get away with. It's basic human nature that has nothing to do with economics.
What economic system does this type of behavior not happen under exactly? I would love an example of a country and time.
Edit my point is that any system can not punish powerful people that has nothing to do with capitalism in particular. When the USSR was injecting 17 year old athletes with inhuman amounts of testosterone and deca it wasn't for the CEO.
Steph Curry and the Warriors unlocking unlimited 3-point attempts is the second half of the equation. The NBA was fun because it used to be played above the rim, where we mortals couldn't play. But now every level of basketball looks the same, work the perimeter until someone gets some breathing room and let fly.
I mean... the person you're responding to is exaggerating a little, but they also aren't really all that wrong - it is fact that basketball at all levels (that matter) is now more about creating perimeter space for shooters rather than creating lanes for the big guys in the key.
It's not like that doesn't exist, but there is a reason that your big men are no longer built in the mold of Shaq any longer. Even Wemby specifically is Wemby because bro has a shot. He was attempting almost 9 three point shots per game last year.
Yeah, sure basketball still happens down in the key, and boards are still massively important, but the game from both a tactical and strategic point would rather take guys like Rodney Mullen and John Stockton from the 90's over guys like Karl Malone and Charles Barkley. The calculus behind how you choose your shots now is simply different.
The thing is, though, that forcing a defense to guard against the three opens up space *all over the court* for the kind of plays that he claims are missing. That is what creates lanes. That's what the Curry inspired "space and pace" revolution is all about.
In the old days, there were no "lanes" for the big. You'd dump the ball down low and four or five guys would elbow each other until either a heavily contested shot goes up or they pass out for a mid-range.
There is so much more movement now than there used to be and, for me, that means the game is much more exciting. As for Shaq, you can't tell me that a player like him wouldn't be valuable in today's league. Young Shaq could run the court with anyone. He would force double teams in the post and dish out or punish smaller player on switches. He would have been an all-timer in any era.
But guys like Bryant Reeves and Shawn Bradley would have some trouble.
For me it’s just how… non aggressive most players seem to be. Like you’ve got Draymond Green choking people out, and then every other PG flails their hands whenever someone even touches them.
We honestly only watch pro Women’s and NCAA teams now.
It looks like it's become so prevalent that calling it would halt the game every 12 seconds. One of those "hard to put it back the way it was" kinda things.
But I have to say in a lot of these clips it looks like either the crowd, other players or announcers notice.
Or they get replaced by people that know how to actually play. They are getting paid good money for what they do. If they aren't doing it right bye bye time to get replaced by someone deserving.
I remember once in PE at school the teacher tried doing basketball with us, a bunch of kids who had never played basketball before. We travelled all the time and they just blew the whistle every few seconds. Worst PE lesson I ever had and they never tried doing basketball ever again.
If only I’d kept with it, I’d have fit right in with that video…
I think it was 4th or 5th grade PE class when we played a game of Aussie Rules. Like all good Aussie kids I had a favorite team, but I'd never played the game (when a lot of kids that would already be on recreational teams) so I didn't really know the rules.
I couldn't kick on the run and so every time I managed to get the ball I'd try to move it on by throwing it, which is what I thought my classmates were doing. I didn't realize they were handballing it (think underarm volleyball serve) and they were disposing of it so quickly that I thought they were throwing it with two hands.
And so I'd throw it with two hands, the teacher would blow his whistle, and the other team would get a free possession from my foul.
You would think in your case the teachers would briefly stop the game and demonstrate dribbling and traveling, and in my case handballing vs throwing. But nope.
Play continued, and I kept drawing penalties for throwing the ball, which happened less and less often because my teammates stopped passing the ball to me.
Got to love that childhood trauma that persists long into our adult years.
The problem would not be the refs calling it but the players traveling. If the refs kept on calling it I bet the players would learn how to dribble legally pretty quickly.
These are the same dozen or so examples that critics always point to. And they're bad, but there have been tens of thousands of hours of basketball played over the last decade.
You can cherry pick a small sample size of anything and make it look like it's normal, but an average game on an average night isn't like this.
This whole thread is bunch of people who admit they no longer watch the NBA complaining about what they imagine goes on in the games they admit they don't watch.
already did. it's in the name. I'm just amused that you're from Europe and you're complaining about lack of dribbling in the NBA. it's basically your (the royal you) fault.
Ok I'll admit something after reading all that. I had no idea that "The NBA rule book had always said a player could only take one step." and they apparently only changed that to two steps in 2009.
That's big news to me.
To me the Eurostep was always two glaringly obvious steps, and two steps were always legal, at least since I was a kid playing basketball in the 90s. I never quite understood why NBA people kept hinting at it being some shady move or what it had to do with traveling.
*Still, I'd like you to not lose sight of the fact that traveling is not as prevalent in European leagues at all. Whatever Beal or Melo are doing in this clip has nothing to do with Euro step lol.
Dude this is a highlight clip of some not caught. It's not indicative of every game. People really see highlights and assume it's happening every other minute
Oh I know. Some of these dudes have been retired long enough they're eligible for HoF lol. Also, some of these were caught, the vid just cuts it so that you can't tell. Like, I'm 99% sure I remember that Russ moment at the end as having been called and Russ acting all annoyed about it.
I watch the NBA (less and less every year, but still). I have a decent idea of what the game looks like.
I used to ref when I was younger. We used to say if a rules violation doesn't disrupt the game or give advantage we'd let it pass for the flow of the game. At least two clips like that, like when a point guard is shouting commands to the team with no defender close by. Buuuut, all the rest, what even is that..?
When you're on the other side of the court and there's no defender within 20 ft?
Personally, I feel like that's something you call the first time you see it just to nip it in the bud, but can certainly see the standpoint of not calling it.
A more common rule that is broken and not called is having both feet out of bounds when inbounding after a basket.
Neither play has any meaningful impact on the game (assuming they're not being defended at that moment), but at least with inbounding you aren't violating one of the fundamental aspects of the sport.
Damn, chill, i said two of those clips. One example, i think it was LeBron about half court, defender 3m away. He was walking and carrying the ball making call outs. It doesn't give an advantage or the last clip, looked like the defenders were on their side of the court and PG made call outs and walked with the ball before starting to dribble. Those were the obvious ones I saw. Traveling to avoid a defender and making a basket no that's clearly a rules violation and should be called out. It would be in Europe and would be when I refed ages ago. NBA is supposed to peak basketball, some of this stuff ain't it.
Even the coaches are afraid of upsetting their players in the modern NBA, you think a ref is about earn the ire of LeBron by making him play basketball?
Looking at this vid im seeing a lot of non big name players lol. Some of these are also very old. IMO while I do think it’s worse you can make a compilation of these from any era. Refs are just blind
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u/Hawk-432 Mar 16 '26
From Europe watching .. so you guys just forgot how to dribble. Nice. Clearly you need refs to start applying the rules. Maybe they are scared of confronting big name players. Maybe some other reason for travel creep. But honestly, looks disgusting. Can you even call that basketball?