I understand that the NBA needs to protect its money making superstars and therefore cannot allow a walking dollar sign....I mean player, to get injured because of excessive contact. That's all well and good but they're taking it to a whole new level. I'm warning you right now, this is going to be one of those angry rant articles and I'm going to focus on two main subjects. The first of which is flopping, the second is the showmanship of players today.
I personally feel that flopping is a sign of weakness and that it's embarrassing for a player to do. You never saw Jordan, Bird, and Magic doing that. They may have sold the call a little bit but never throwing themselves on the floor to draw the foul like in today's game.
As you can see by the picture, LeBron James get bumped, and then throws himself backwards and flails his arms in the air like an injured ballerina to get a cheap foul call.
In in the fourth quarter of tonight's game four of the Eastern Conference Finals Carlos Boozer delivered a hard foul to Chris Bosh. Now, yes the foul had some force behind it. But in the replay you can see Bosh clearly regain his footing, then stop drop and roll as if he were a kindergardener during a fire drill.
It happens all the time. And Bulls fans, don't agree with me too fast because I'm going at a Heat player. Omer Asik is one of the worst floppers I've ever seen. If he doesn't have a chance at the rebound, he just jumps under the basket and yells and hopes the ref calls a push on somebody.
Remember the Bad Boys Pistons from the late 80's?
Under today's regulations not only would every single player be suspended but they would also be in an abyss of debt because of all the fines they would have to pay. For those of you who aren't familiar with basketball in those days. It was actually a contact sport in which players would fight for the ball. If you went to the foul line you were going to earn it, it was as simple as that.
In today's league, if you so much as lay a finger on LeBron he's going to the line. If someone ever actually laid him out? First off the player who did it would be playing in Puerto Rico before sunrise and David Stern would be at LeBron's bedside feeding him hot soup and coco.
It seems like all of the real stars in the league today flop. Don't get me wrong, there usually is contact, but they then throw their bodies to make it look like they were hit hard. One of the only guys who doesn't do it is Derrick Rose and I respect him for it (also my favorite player so he gets the mention).
At the end you will see my list of players who flop all the time and the players that by my definition aren't floppers.
Is this the message we really want to send to all the young basketball players out there? "Don't worry about playing tough, every time you go to the basket scream and hope you get a call, and if not, complain to the ref." That's disgusting to me.
If Michael Jordan played in today's NBA, I think he might have scored 50 a game because he would have been at the free throw line all night.
But that's not the case, Jordan played against those Pistons teams who kicked the crap out of him every single time he went to the basket. That's how teams today would defend LeBron but, as I said before, they would be lucky if they were not sent to a terrorist prison camp as a result.
The second problem I have is the way guys look into the crowd and do stupid non-basketball related things to get attention.
This is a basketball game, not a performance.
Last year I went off on LeBron (you will notice I'm not a fan) for dancing during games. He would actually get up off the bench, report to the baseline and start dancing like he was in a Michael Jackson music video. That's just an insult, not to the other team, but to all of the players who came before him and to all of the people out there who genuinely love the game.
Every time he dunks or hits a shot LeBron seems to feel the need to look into the crowd and make a spectacle of himself. Play the game. When you hit a game winner, or win a huge game, then you can do all that stuff, not when you hit a jumper in the middle of the third quarter. It's not just him, Kobe does it, KG does it (although I think we've all just accepted that he's crazy), Amar'e Stoudemire does it, as well as many others.
The NBA should really crackdown on all of the extra foolishness because it's ruining the game for basketball fans. It seems that a lot of people my age view it as entertainment, I (and a lot of older basketball fans) view it as nonsensical stupidity that should be eliminated immediately.
Don't even get me started on halftime shows nowadays.
And as for the fouling situation. The NBA should make a statement this offseason saying that after a review of the play, if it is ruled that you flopped, you will be hit with a 10,000 dollar fine automatically. It's hard to tell during the game if a guy flops but slow motion replays usually show it.
Basketball used to be a tough game and to go to the foul line you usually had the bruises to show for it. Now, whoever generates the most league revenue gets there. It's shameful.
Non notorious flopping star players:
Derrick Rose
Deron Williams
Kevin Garnett
Jason Kidd
Tim Duncan
Dwight Howard
Al Horford (using the term star loosely)
Kevin Durant
Kevin Love
Kobe Bryant (sometimes)
Notorious floppers:
Rajon Rondo
LeBron James (he's 250 pounds, not that easy to knock down)
Dwyane Wade
Paul Pierce
Omer Asik
Kirk Hinrich
Anderson Varejao
Kobe Bryant (sometimes)
Glen Davis
Derek Fisher
Danny Granger
Tyler Hansbrough
Luis Scola
Tony Parker
Chris Bosh
and the list goes on and on....
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