Hoops

Flop or foul?

Charging into the hip of the defender who had good position early enough?

Whoever initiated the contact and hadn't established position or direction early enough, in this case the attacker.

"The officials should not seek to interrupt the flow of the game unnecessarily in order to penalise incidental personal contact"

The sh.t I'm annoyed by is way beyond incidental contact! Incidental contact is brushing past someone, and I'd never want that called.

What gets my goat is the intentional hard contact. A dribbler charging at the defender's hip will usually get a blocking foul, even if the defender had position and didn't move. A low-post player slamming into a defender to move him back a metre. A rebounder pushing someone sideways to get him out of the way. Sticking the bum out when setting a screen, just to make the defender's job harder. Holding the attacker as he's going round you.

I'm with you, POP

And the first [& I assume primary] 'fundamental principle' is

• The spirit and intent of the rules and the need to uphold the integrity of the game.

That, surely, is the crux of the issue.

There is so much subjectivity that it seems to me the primary objective - and so the primary respopnsibility of the officials - of upholding the spirit and intent of the rules and the integrity of the game has been almost completely lost sight of.

To put it succinctly & colloquially; we've lost the plot.

The game is in need of a good dose of objectivity [the letter of the rules, in this case] to balance what has [obviously to me] become an excessive reliance on the subjective personal opinions of the officials.

It's not necessarily the officials' fault, but they - & those coaching/directing them - are part of the issue.

Relying more on the rules, which are designed to ensure the game is played on an 'even footing', with a fair balance between offence & defence, with players using their skills and abilities rather than brute strength, would go a long way to addressing the issue, which is far more complex than 'flopping'.

At present it seems every change in approach requires officials to make yet another subjective assessment. They not only have to see the hold, push or whatever, but decide whether it has an 'effect'. It's hard enough to see and react to illegal actions without having to guess at what effect each one might or might not have. This in fact not only makes it hard for officials to make decisions, it has the effect of discouraging them from making calls [it's too hard!]. It also provides a ready excuse for any no-call, wrong or right.

Every illegal physical action does have an effect - a physical impact on the recipient - even if there is no immediate direct gain or benefit [like a turn-over or missed shot].

Every no-call on an illegal action has a direct impact on the game because it means the player not called stays in the game long after his [or her] fifth foul. The five-foul limit is there to ensure players who use illegal/unfair measures don't stay in the game!

To go to the complexity ... falling over on contact is far from the only issue.

What about the guard who throws his head & 'off' arm up as he drives past a defender? He's clearly trying to convince the officials he was contacted, whether or not he was. Might not be 'flopping', but he is trying to gain an unfair advantage by deceiving the referees. This is not a hypothetical.

And just to put the argument in context - what about the player driving to the basket who dips his or her shoulder into a defender, who is in legal position travelling parallel to him/her? The attacking player makes the contact but, when a call is made, the defender invariably gets the foul.

Guess that in some ways that's a parallel with the post player driving into the defender. I'm pretty sure failure to call that [charges in post clashes] is a major contributing factor to the holding and 'arms around' defence we see so much of in 'low post' situations in particular. It's the defender's way of trying to 'level the playing field'. Stop the charging and you remove the excuse/reason for that sort of 'defence' - if that's what you call it.

As I said - not simple!

So if Seth Scott takes a dribble into Luke Schenscher and pushes him back a step, and then does it a few more times in order to get close to the basket, then who would consider that legal or say that the refs are doing their job by not calling it?

Seth would be causing contact, would be breaking Luke's plane, and would be putting Luke at a disadvantage. Doesn't sound legal to me.

So why is it allowed so much in the NBL and NBA?

People who flop to gain an advantage for their team, in my opinion, are cheats. They are applying an action that does not proportionally match the force in the contact. Ask any player that plays against or even with a flopper, it's not an admired attribute. They serve to frustrate the offensive player and team who's purpose is score or create offensive. But as a team mate of a flopper, it also frustrates and embarrasses because no one wants to be associated with a cheat. Getting a tech is light IMO. Integrity and faking arnt words usually used in the same sentence. For cheating, you should get a yellow card. Reoffend, red card and have a week off to think about how good flopping is for the game.

Agree, Jason, and that's where 'referee interpretation' becomes such an issue, instead of just sticking to the rules.

Was just looking at Rosell Ellis's profile on Wikipedia and never knew he once attacked a referee.

After his college career, Ellis joined the Des Moines (Iowa) Dragons of the now-defunct International Basketball Association, and became the league's fifth-leading scorer. He attracted scouts to his games but had an incident in January 1998. There were NBA scouts in the stands when Ellis lost his mind and put an IBA referee in a choke hold. According to Ellis, a referee, Bob Schoewe, was berating players as they lined up around the paint for free throws. Ellis snapped back at Schoewe, who denies insulting the players, and in turn gave Ellis a technical foul in retaliation. Ellis protested again and the ref called a second technical and ejected him from the game. Ellis ran to the scorer's table where Schoewe was reporting the ejection, leaped on the referee's back, and put Schoewe in a sleeper hold. A throng of coaches, players, referees, and security officers pulled Ellis away from Schoewe and brought him to the locker room. The IBA banned him for a year for this action. This action was after Latrell Sprewell's choking of his coach, thus Ellis was shunned by NBA scouts. Now, Ellis looks at this incident as one of his big misdeeds.[2


I had no idea he had done this.