Saturday's Georgetown- Ohio State game was hyped as featuring a clash of two seven-foot centers, but failed to live up to that billing, as Greg Oden picked up two quick fouls, and sat for most of the first half. Roy Hibbert of Georgetown didn't fare much better.
This has prompted a bunch of pinhead commentators, most notably Dick Vitale and Billy Packer to start agitating for changes in the rules so that star players won't have to worry about foul trouble. Vitale wants to move to six fouls before disqualification, but he doesn't stop there. He thinks that you should be able to continue playing a guy with six fouls, and any subsequent fouls they commit should count as intentional fouls-- two shots plus the ball. Billy Packer was pushing for something similar during the first half of the champioship last night.
You know, if you're going to start tinkering with the rules, there's another one that really limits spectacular plays: Traveling. If we just let guys tuck the ball under their arm, and run with it, that'd really free things up.
The thing is, while you could construct a perfectly good game using those rules, it wouldn't be basketball.
Vitale said several times before I hit "mute" that basketball is the only sport where teams can lose players from the game for things that are part of normal game play. Which is perfectly true, but it's not a Bad Thing-- it's part of what makes the game unique. The idea of disqualifying players for physical contact goes back to the very beginning of the sport. Fouling out is an essential part of the game, and the strategy of the game-- it's not some tinker-around-the-margins thing, it's one of the defining characteristics of basketball, just like the traveling rule, and the ten-foot hoop. You have to put the ball through a hoop up in the air, you're not allowed to make contact with another player, and you're not allowed to run with the ball: these are the essential elements that define basketball.
These are not rules to be thrown aside lightly, because a few games didn't turn out the way you wanted. It sucks that a few quick whistles put Oden and Hibbert on the bench, but that's basketball. Things don't always go the way you'd like, and you need to deal with it.
Vitale's justification is that the players have become stronger and faster, and the rules need to change to reflect this, but that's a bunch of crap. The fouls that were called on Oden and Hibbert were not the result of their prodigious athleticism not fitting within the antiquated rules of basketball-- Oden got whistled for a moving screen on a play where he pulled the patented Duke hip-check move to make sure he caught the defender. It would've been a foul on a five-nine shooting guard, let alone a seven-foot prodigy, and the ref was perfectly correct to call it such.
And it's not like it should be a surprise to these players and coaches that too many fouls get you disqualified from the game-- that's only been the rule for the last hundred years or so. Oden took a chance (a dumb one), and he and his coach have to deal with the consequences. This is why Ohio State coach Thad Matta gets paid the big bucks: to make decisions in situations like this.
I don't really think this is going to go anywhere, because it's a stupid suggestion even by Vitale's standards. And the last rule change he loudly and publicly lobbied for-- the short-lived change from alternate possession in a jump-ball situation to giving the ball to the defense-- was a travesty, so I doubt people will be quick to accept this idiocy. But it's important to note that this is an idiotic suggestion, and one that strikes at the very core of what makes basketball a unique sport.
- Log in to post comments
Allow me to make the first completely basketball-ignorant comment in this basketball thread.
My two favourite sports (and the only two which I have played to any extent) are cricket and rugby. Both of those have had changes made over the years (cricket is 400+ years old, so we'd expect some changes over that length of time) and often those rules changes have had the desired effect (and, yes, often they haven't).
Change isn't the enemy and sometimes it'll enthuse the fans. What little I know of basketball, however, doesn't support this particular change. Perhaps these star players could avoid these problems by comitting less fouls.
Rulesbreaking has also always been a part of the strategy in football (what you seppos call soccer) and that sport still seems to be doing OK (although like nearly everyone else, I'd like to see the divers and other playactors publically flogged).
"Vitale said several times before I hit "mute" that basketball is the only sport where teams can lose players from the game for things that are part of normal game play. Which is perfectly true, but it's not a Bad Thing-- it's part of what makes the game unique."
Vitale is an idiot. There are lots of sports where you can lose a player from the game. In soccer, not only is the player not allowed to play anymore, but the team isn't allowed to replace him.
Vitale is an idiot. There are lots of sports where you can lose a player from the game. In soccer, not only is the player not allowed to play anymore, but the team isn't allowed to replace him.
That's the reason for the qualifier "that are part of normal game play." You don't lose players in soccer for ordinary violations-- you can be offsides as many times as you like, without being thrown out of the game. In basketball, five relatively minor violations get you sent off.
Defenders fouling strikers is absolutely part of normal game play in football (soccer) and in a way that can result in a yellow card (with two of those, of course, being a sending off). Shirt dragging, late tackling, pulling the player over, pushing, etc, is all part of the defender's normal play. And that's before we consider the detestable, but normal, practice of diving, which is a more modern phenomenon but which is a foul that will get you a yellow card if the referee is certain that you are doing it.
The point is, it's possible to rack up lots of fouls for tackling, pushing, etc. without ever drawing a yellow card. I used to play soccer (in high school), and I got whistled for a lot of contact violations, but I never got a yellow card.
Yellow cards in soccer are more properly analgous to technical fouls in basketball, which are only handed out for particularly flagrant violations of the rules. You don't expect players to get yellow cards on a regular basis-- in fact, don't two in consecutive games lead to a one-game suspension, in World Cup play at least?
In basketball, you expect players to pick up a foul or two in the course of a game. Most post players will average three a game, or so. They're very much a part of normal game play, in a way that yellow cards are not.
Adam,
Basketball rules have changed over time, and I think most people are ok with that. The 3-point line was introduced, college ball went from no shot clock to a 45-second clock, to a 35-second clock. I don't think Chad is arguing that all change is bad, but that unlimited fouls is a terrible change. That isn't some sort of minor tweak, but would change almost every aspect of the game. It would be like soccer/football adopting a rule where you can knock the ball down out of the air with your hands, like in hockey.
Chad: There is normally a penalty for accumulated yellow cards over various games, but it depends on the competition. In the World Cup, it's two in one stage, I think (either the group stage or the knock-out stage), although I'm no expert.
The fact is that, in the UK at least, plenty of the pros complain about the arbitrariness of the carding, saying that you can do the same thing twenty times and not get carded (even if the refs blows the whisle and awards a free kick) or do it once and get carded. So in that sense it seems pretty similar to basketball to me, in that the player is throwing the dice a little (but has to do it anyhow because not to do it offers too big an advantage to the other side).
A somewhat similar situation, actually, obtains in rugby, although it's of more recent vintage (and normally just results in sinbinning rather than ejection from the game).
Cricket is almost entirely different; there are fixed penalties (runs awarded) for transgressions but it's really hard to get sent off ('ungentlemanly conduct' is one way, but the definition of what is 'gentlemanly' has to be significantly loosened from what is generally percieved to be the case).
But yeah, from what I know of basketball, I agree with the people that don't favour this suggested rule. My point is just that it's not entirely unique to basketball (and in football/soccer, it very much defines the flavour of the game, too).
I found as a large person, I got fouls easier cause if I hip checked someone they tended to bounce more, it was more noticeable. Of course I was odd, 6'2" guard on a team of 5'10" quick leapers. I played guard as I would actually pass the ball, and could shoot some, and I did set a good pick.
So do you think that folks like Oden and Hibbard get more cheap fouls due to being able to generate a large force with just a little motion? Ideally any contact is a foul but that turns impractical real quick as well as slightly stupid. So is the foul threshold determined by the actions of the fouler, or the effect on the fouled, or some arbitrary mixture of the two? In practice its kind of the latter in college, pros too except there you get the "star exemptions".
One comment on the original article: They did legalize traveling, without even changing the rules. Officials decided that the "jump stop" is not two steps. Now players are working on getting a fourth step, and complain when they get caught at it.
What is being overlooked here, in comparisons to soccer, is that officials do not call every contact that occurs in basketball either, only ones that they view as of significance. (I always think of hockey, where fans and announcers alike will regularly say that someone "hooked" another player, albeit in the gray area allowed by officials.) Officials have already legalized "charging" if you are big enough to push the other guy out of the way, something that has changed the game for the worse. If that big guy is so "athletic", let's see him score without backing his man into the next county.
Fights in hockey typically result from a series of "minor" fouls that the officials ignore, and I predict a continuing increase in basketball violence as officials let contact go uncalled to keep the "flow of the game" going and the TV people happy.
Oops, left out my favorite "rule change". I'm so old that I remember when only 5 players were allowed on the court. I keep waiting to see a player toss the ball to that 6th man (the one in the suit) when he is on the court and see if the refs will call a technical on his team.
Adam - There are "rules" in Rugby? Are you sure? I thought that as long as someone didn't die, the play just went on. Don't know if you've seen this, but worth the look if you are a rugger, or know somebody crazy enough to play this excellent game:
http://groups.northwestern.edu/womensrugby/links_thebrushback.htm
Rugby can be a little brutal, it's true.
I would like to play again while I am not too old (although my grandfather played into his 60s, he has a dedication to maintaining his physical conditioning that I don't share, not to mention a disregard of multiple injuries). My wife fears for my safety, alas, not to mention the perpetuation of my awesome beauty, but I still fancy giving it a go; there is a local team (it's played in a fair amount of the US).
That story was pretty amusing. It's true that there is not a great deal of concern wasted on injured players. JPR Williams was one of the hardest of the hard men; a surgeon who nevertheless played with a disregard for injuries to his hands, he allegedly once left the field to stitch up a hole in his own cheek (caused by a stamp on his face, I believe) before returning to the field. In any case, he was one very tough guy and that in the days when the game was strictly amateur (as it was until relatively recently).
J-Dog: Adam - There are "rules" in Rugby? Are you sure? I thought that as long as someone didn't die, the play just went on.
Heh. Rugby is a pretty rough game if you're not used to it, but there certainly are rules. It's just they don't always apply to injuries - in school rugby I once dislocated an opponent's shoulder in a tackle and play carried on - the guy crawled off the pitch for treatment.
It makes for an interesting contrast in the UK, where professional football (Proper football! ) and rugby are both popular, football more so. On the one hand there's these long haired girly football players falling over crying foul at the slightest contact. Whilst often rugby players have to be forced to leave the pitch after serious blood injuries as they want to keep going! Definite difference in attitude...
In terms of all-round hardness the New Zealand cricketer Jacob Oram does pretty well. He broke a finger shortly before the current world cup and was willing to cut it off rather than miss the tournament...
I knew I could get this discussion onto cricket and rugby.
Chad, the one argument I've heard in favor of allowing 6 fouls (or some other variation of changing the 5 foul rule) that makes any sense is the change in the number of referees working the games. When the NCAA increased from two refs to three refs, some have argued (although I haven't seen any stats to back it up) that more fouls would be called (more eyes to notice fouls, and more whistles to call them). That means the players should be given more fouls to make up for the increase in foul calls.
In the limit, an infinite number of referees and an infinite number of fouls? I suppose if the referees were of geometrically decreasing size and visual acuity, and the fouls were charged 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... then this would converge asymptotically on improved basketball?
An infinite number of Planck-length virtual referees might account for a Higgs field, and increased mass of the basketball players, making slam-dunks harder.
How about Real Baseball, with 3.1415926535.. strikes and you're out?
RPM, the only reasonable argument for more fouls is that they have not learned anything since high school. You get five fouls in a 32 minute HS game, so maybe you should get 6 in a 40 minute college game. But that was never the logic used in the game.
You get 5 fouls for 40 minutes in college, so you get 6 fouls for 48 minutes in the pros. You should only get 4 fouls in high school (and maybe they should do that for the "elite" HS players), but they let you have 5 because you are still learning the game. Actually, you should only get 5 in the pros as well, since they should have learned something in college, but TV wants the stars in the game.
Rugby has plenty of rules. In fact, the pace of play in rugby has drastically decreased in the last few years due to higher numbers of "professional fouls" that are intended to kill the flow of play.
It seems like you rarely get more than a couple minutes of open play anymore. Nonetheless, it is a great spectator sport that certainly provides more continuous excitement than American football.