Jul

25

Ok…it wasn’t one of the refs that I speculated. So, I better give an accounting of myself. For full disclosure I will give a history of my relationship with basketball so there is no mistake in perceptions; I don’t like basketball.

My first experience with Basketball was around second grade. At the elementary school I went to we played on a blacktop playground before school started. On that playground were basketball goals. Naturally, I tried to play Basketball with some of the other kids on the playground. Since I had never played before I wasn’t that good but I wanted to try. I distinctly remember one of the first (and last) times I got the ball, one of the other kids dribbled the ball away from me. I didn’t realize that was allowed. Naturally, when he had the ball next I tried to dribble it away from him. Well, at that point all the other kids said it was a foul because I was “reaching in”. I did not understand at all. As far as I knew I had done the exact same thing to him that he did to me, but what I did WASN’T allowed and what he did was. The only other thing about this I want to point out is that I had already played at least one year of player-pitch baseball (I started very young, I don’t even know if they allow player pitch baseball at that young an age now) so I could figure out rules of some sports.

Although, I played one season of football in middle school, I didn’t play it seriously until high school (and by seriously I mean going out there and getting my butt kicked while on the C squad by guys who weight 100 pounds more than I did). But by the time I had ever played football I understood the rules. Why? I watched the sport on T.V. I didn’t know all the rules of football when I started watching it but after watching it the rules started to make sense and in seeing the consistency I understood what was allowed and what wasn’t allowed. Having watched and played baseball from such a young age and I can’t remember NOT knowing the rules of baseball so the rules in baseball seem to me to be as natural as the universe.

As an adult I have tried to watch basketball several times. Every few years during the playoffs (especially during the Jordan era) something interesting would happen and I would tune in to try and see if I could get into basketball. Nearly every time I had the same problem; the rules seemed completely arbitrary and I could not understand them. Sometimes something was a foul, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes what one guy did was a foul but some other guy could do it all he wanted. One of the few rules I learned as a kid, traveling, seemed to be broken all the time and not even the coaches seemed to care. So, after doing this a few times I finally gave up on Basketball.

Years later during a discussion with co-workers about basketball I posited the idea that basketball was fundamentally flawed. I said the rules were so arbitrary (what I now realized I meant was that the application of the rules were very subjective). My co-workers pointed out to me that the rules of ANY sport are arbitrary. So I found my one example; my one question; the holy grail of why basketball is flawed. Basketball is the only sport that has a tactic where you break the rules of the game as part of a valid, desired and even expected strategy to win. That tactic is fouling at the end of a game to stop the clock.

I know what your thinking. Your welcome to try it but I have had this debate with MANY people over the years. Only ONE example in one sport even came close but even it didn’t fit the same problem as fouling at the end of a game in basketball. To put it in perspective think of a football head coach running a play where all the linemen are supposed to hold or the corner-back is told to do pass-interference. How about in baseball where the manager says “forget to step on second base when you round it” or “pitcher, be sure to baulk on the next pitch”. Sure, there are some things that may happen similar, such as hurting a player in football, but it’s done “under the covers”. A lineman may have to hold in order to prevent the worse case scenario but it’s spur of the moment not a called play. If in any of these scenarios the player gets away with it without a foul being called, all the better. You certainly don’t hear from the announcers “he’s gonna have his batters hit out of order here”.

But not in basketball. If you are at the end of a close game and trying to stop the clock a player might get mad for a foul NOT being called because he wants the clock to be stopped. Those rules are in place so that these things DON’T happen. Yet, it’s the expectation to actually break these rules because it’s in the best interest of the team that the side effect of breaking the rules is better than the penalty.

This is just a perfect example of the problem with the rules of the sport. Think about how many flags are thrown in football in a given game. Think about how many time an umpire in baseball has to step in from rules being broken. Now think about how much time a basketball game is dedicated to fouls. I was reading an article on ESPN where a commenter said something about the number of opportunities for a foul on a single given play in basketball. I think he guessed something like 30. Think about that THIRTY. If every person on the field of a football play was committing a foul it wouldn’t add up to 30. The game is more about fouls then it is about playing a sport.

So, while everybody is talking about referees and betting and quality and transparency they are missing the big problem: the rules in basketball right now are fundementally flawed. Since I don’t understand the sport as it is I won’t presume to know how to fix them. I also recognize that I am highly biased. But if what I see as a problem could be fixed with basketball how many more fans would basketball have?

Jul

20

So, in February I went on vacation on a cruise to Hawaii. I intended to blog when I got back but I got busy, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’ll be trying to catch up on all the stuff that has happened the last couple of months. But for a preview I’ll be posting pictures of our cruise ship coming of it’s mooring in Maui, more problems with companies with deliveries, what I’m up to with Flex and Java and probably some St. Louis Cardinals talk.

Until then remember this name: Bennett Salvatore. I’m putting my money on him being the ref in trouble with the feds. MAYBE Ken Mauer; hopefully both (because I wanted the Mavericks to win the championship last year). They both have been convicted of the same type of tax fraud by the feds before. What would the league do to a player who had gotten in trouble with the feds for taxes? I don’t think I have, so when it all blows up for the NBA I’ll post my age old argument about which is worse Basketball or Soccer (football for you out-of-towners).

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