Concept of foul changes, and arbitration undergoes transformations in the NBA

When James Naismith invented basketball in 1892, he proposed 13 rules. He stipulated in one of them that “any use of the shoulders, arms, legs or any form of blow or push against the opponent’s person” would not be allowed. These actions would be known as “fouls”.

More than a century later, after numerous changes to the game, this definition remains more or less the same. But Naismith’s rule on fouls has undergone constant evolution. What constitutes a “blow” or “push”?

Faults are faults. Except when they aren’t. Or are they a certain type of fault. Unless they aren’t. In the 1984 NBA finals, Boston Celtics’ Kevin McHale hit Los Angeles Lakers’ Kurt Rambis in the throat with his outstretched arm, sending Rambis crashing down onto the court. At the time, the move was considered a common foul. No flagrant foul or expulsion and suspension.

The NBA rulebook has preserved the basic idea of ​​what a fault is, over time, but has added interpretations and severity levels. In the 1990s, flagrant faults emerged. And the emphases have shifted as to what referees should consider acceptable in basketball.

In the current season, there was another change, this time protecting the defenders. The idea is to prevent attacking players from digging fouls. Check out moments when the NBA adjusted its concepts.

blatant fouls

In Game Four of the 1984 NBA Finals, Kurt Rambis received a pass on a break and tried to move up to a layup. But he couldn’t. Kevin McHale reached out and hit him in the throat area, causing the opponent to immediately collapse. The players from the two reserve benches invaded the court. The move became a symbol of the very physical game that was allowed in that decade.

“That lack was the impetus for a lot of rule changes,” said Rambis, now special adviser to the Lakers.

Before the start of the 1990/91 season, the NBA adopted more severe penalties for this type of foul. If a player committed an especially harsh foul, it would be defined as a flagrant foul. The player would not necessarily be sent off, but the injured team would have two free throws and would receive possession after them.

“Hopefully we’ll have fewer of these ridiculous fouls where players don’t even care if they hurt an opponent,” said Rod Thorn, then one of the league’s officials. “Basketball is getting too rough.”

Rambis had defined McHale as “a foul play artist” and declared, “I would probably have been in jail right now if I could do what I wanted to against him after he took me down.” But since then, he seems to have softened his stance and told The New York Times he had no “animosity” or “hatred” toward McHale.

“I don’t think Kevin intended to do what he did,” said Rambis. “The result of the foul wasn’t what he intended. We made hard fouls against players to prevent dunks and lay-ups. It was an unfortunate circumstance,” he said.

The thrower’s landing (the Zaza Pachulia rule)

In the first game of the Western Conference Finals in 2017, San Antonio Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard moved up to a pitch marked by Golden State Warriors pivot Zaza Pachulia. Pachulia was so close to Leonard that Leonard landed on his opponent’s foot and sprained his ankle for the second time in the match. Gregg Popovich, Spurs coach, called the move “dangerous” and “unsportsmanlike”.

Thereafter, the NBA adopted the so-called “Zaza rule”, whereby if a defender does not give the opponent room to land after jumping to a play, he can be punished with a flagrant foul.

Pachulia received a common foul, and Leonard converted both free throws. But Leonard didn’t play that series again, and the Warriors eliminated the Spurs by four to zero.

In late 2020, Pachulia said in a podcast that Leonard’s injury was “an unfortunate and very serious accident, a misfortune”. He also stated that he felt “very bad” for what happened.

“I’m also an athlete. My kids play,” said Pachulia. “I don’t want to see anyone go through that.”

Monty McCutchen, senior vice president of referee training for the NBA, said the rule change was being discussed ahead of the play. Although athletes have become more adept at creating distance from the opponent when jumping to the pitch, the movement still drives them forward, and they need room to land.

The NBA limits the use of hands marking

For much of the 20th century, basketball favored the tallest players, and most points were scored in the big box. Defenders were allowed to use their hands to contain the advance of opponents. This put point guards, who are typically the shortest players on the court, at a disadvantage. But the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen playing on the perimeter, changed the NBA’s calculations.

By 1994, Jordan and Pippen had already won three titles together, but Jordan had decided to retire, and the league was looking for a new perimeter star to fill the void. The NBA instructed referees to start seeing the use of hands to contain the advance of players on the perimeter as a foul, considering that this would make it easier for point guards to make baskets.

“Offensively it will be great,” Pippen said at the time. “But on the defensive side it’s going to be hard to get used to. It’s not that I use my hands that much to stop the opponent’s movement, but it’s something we’ve been doing for so long that it’s hard to remember that it’s not allowed anymore.”

Steve Kerr, his teammate, added: “I don’t know how anyone is going to be able to tag guys like Kevin Johnson and Tim Hardaway.” He was referring to the point guards of the Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors, respectively, two of the best in the league at the time.

The NBA’s enforcement of the rules regarding the illegal use of hands in defense has never been very consistent. Varying levels of hand use were allowed until the 2004/05 season, when the league finally banned almost any restrictive contact with an offensive player.

“This form of marking had become so widespread in the league that it was no longer possible to carry the ball,” McCutchen said.

The points average rose from 93.4 points per game in 2003/04 to 97.2 in 2004/05, likely as a result of the rule change on the use of hands defending and other changes as part of an ongoing transition from rules in order to favor offensive players.

The stricter imposition of illegal hand-marking fouls opened the door for players like Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry to become dominant by shooting behind the three-point line and bouncing in from the vat towards the basket.

The less physical style of play has its critics, like Metta Sandiford-Artest, who for nearly two decades was one of the best defensive players in the NBA, and one of the most physical.

“If you’re big and strong, they tried to eliminate the fact that someone could be bigger and stronger,” said Sandiford-Artest, known as Ron Artest and as Metta World Peace during his NBA years.

“So they created a lot of rules against big and strong players, benefiting fast and smaller players. My feeling is that the rules are unfair. Because now a player can hit Shaq or LeBron, but they can’t do the same,” he said. .

freedom of movement

In the 2018/19 season, the NBA expanded the rule restricting the use of hands in marking to emphasize “freedom of movement” even for players who do not have the ball. With the new change, all players were allowed to move freely around the court without opponents being able to block them with the use of their arms or hips.

“The throws and jerks had become so strong that the game of basketball, which combines strength and speed, had turned into an unbalanced showdown in which strength came out ahead,” McCutchen said.

When players like Curry and other great pitchers, for example Joe Harris of the Brooklyn Nets, seek to sidestep defenders, they cannot use their hips or provoke bumps and grabs to slow the opponent down. This gives fast players like De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings an advantage, who are difficult to score when walking around the court without the ball.

A regra Reggie Miller

Reggie Miller, a basketball Hall of Famer and one of the best pitchers in NBA history, had great skill at digging fouls when shooting long-distance shots.

He has been known to extend his leg when jumping, causing contact with the defender but making it appear that the defender had precipitated the illegal contact. The maneuver worked often enough that Miller aroused the anger of opposing players and coaches.

Chris Webber, also a basketball Hall of Famer, called his teammate “the kicker” in a radio interview in 2018. Miller, who retired in 2005, and Webber faced each other many times in the 1990s and 2000 and later worked together as basketball commentators on TNT.

“When he was throwing and throwing threes, all those leg maneuvers that he now complains about when commenting on games, well, he helped to make it all up,” Webber said.

Players have been copying Miller for years, looking for similar results.

“When you start to see something like a referee — and the league is always a little behind the trends — the eye doesn’t get that classy visual syntax,” McCutchen said. “It was when Reggie was playing that we started to see players acting that way to try to fool the referees.”

In 2012, the NBA instructed referees to rigorously apply the rule that classifies as an offense foul occasions when a player deliberately extends his leg to seek contact with the defender.

unnatural movements

In recent years, stars like James Harden of the Brooklyn Net and Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks have become very adept at digging fouls by leaning their bodies on the defenders, jumping to hit them from the sides, or hooking their arms through theirs. These were creative maneuvers, intended to deceive the referees into believing that the defender had initiated the contact.

Other players started playing during matches, trying to dig fouls. Critics inside and outside the NBA said this style of play was making the league unfair and unwatchable.

Prior to the start of this season, the NBA announced that plays involving “unnatural moves” would be considered offensive fouls, not defensive fouls. The impact was immediate, and the number of fouls called by the referees dropped a lot, on Harden in particular, but also on other athletes, since the beginning of the pre-season.

Jordan Clarkson, point guard for the Utah Jazz, said the move allowed defenders to “use their hands a little more.” Asked if he was using his hands more now, Clarkson replied, “Absolutely all the time.”

Draymond Green, a Golden State Warriors winger who won the 2016/17 NBA best defender award and has a good chance of repeating the feat this year, said that after the latest move, “our game has improved.”

“I like to watch NBA games. But I don’t care about games that finish 144-148 in normal time. Those high scores didn’t come from the big pitchers, although we have big pitchers in the sport. three points with little marking, and from people who know how to dig fouls,” said Green.

“I think we’re seeing more meaningful basketball now,” the defender concluded.