I'm not sure that why they suck at free throws matters. NBA strategy is to exploit a player's weakness. If he can't shoot, you sag off and dare him to shoot. If he can't defend a pick and roll, you play pick and roll against him. If a guy can't handle ball pressure, then you pressure him when he has the ball. If he can't shoot free throws, you make him shoot free throws. I understand it's not compelling to watch, but why is the solution here to change the rules to negate the player's weakness? In all other instances, we emphasize exploiting weaknesses.
In 2 of these situations, the offense is able to choose what it wants to do, in the other, not so much. There's very much a difference between fouling a bad ft shooter when he's about to score and walking up and fouling him while he's 40 feet away from the ball walking up the court. That's no more a basketball play than punching someone in the head.
The offense can choose what it wants to do in the FT situation too: take the guy off the floor if you don't want him fouled. Or, if there has to be a change, do what was proposed in the other thread - only allow it across midcourt. So if the offense wants to leave their crappy FT shooter on the defensive side of the court and play 4-on-5 on offense, they can. But there absolutely should be a penalty for being a sucky FT shooter. You shouldn't get your weakness legislated away.
Except intentionally fouling a player is breaking the rules while the other two examples are not. A team should not get a, perceived or otherwise, advantage from breaking the rules. I don't agree with those that want to institute a harsh penalty (2 free throws and the ball) for these fouls, but given the fouled team a choice of free throws or ball on the side would be fair. I mean, some coaches may go ahead and take the free throws if they can get 1 point each time, but they should have a choice.
Agree completely and last nights game with tons of hacks was still very exciting. No one has a problem with the end of game hacks or the australian having to hit 6 free throws to seal the game. Dream shot 76% from the FT in 94-95 Yao was a career 83% FT shooter. That is huge for big men and if the importance is taken away a player having that skill and mental strength is of reduced value.
All fouling is "breaking the rules". That's the definition of a foul. Should we eliminate all fouling at ends of games when people are intentionally doing so to stop the clock and get the ball back?
I wasn't really addressing the rule change on my post as much as I was addressing the criticism of bad FT shooters. That being said, I agree 100% with your take on exploiting weaknesses... as long as you are fouling someone with the ball. Fouling someone off the ball does nothing to promote the absolute objective of basketball (make basket/prevent other team from making basket), is not entertaining to watch, and rewards the team "breaking the rules" by fouling. You should never be at a disadvantage because the other team chooses to break a rule. It's why the allow you to decline penalties in football.
Exactly - FT shooting is a skill, no different than defense, dribbling, etc. Basic strategy is to make the other team do what they don't do well.
But why is intentionally fouling someone with the ball any better? How is fouling someone intentionally 80 feet away from the basket really any different if they have the ball or not? What if the foul isn't intentional and you accidentally run into them 80 feet away? Teams don't want to get fouled at ends of games and would rather run 24 seconds off the clock. Do we need to change that as well since it puts the leading team at a disadvantage?
Except I can never force a bad ball handler like Omer Asik to bring the ball up the court through a defense. I can never force Steph Curry to try and block a Deandre Jordan dunk one-on-one. Sure, I can try and develop plays to put them in situations where they are disadvantaged, but there is absolutely nothing in the rule book that allows me to stop play, single them out, and force them to perform these tasks solo. The simplest solution is off-the-ball fouls result in the fouled team getting to pick their FT shooter. The team still has to make their FTs, so that skill isn't lost. And if the Rockets are brave enough to give Dwight or Josh the ball, the other team can still foul the ever-living hell out of them to exploit the weakness. The Rockets will have a choice to make: either run an offense where 40% of the guys can't touch the ball, or run the risk of a crappy FT shooter going to the line. Still strategy. Still abilities to exploit weakness. But not the huge advantage to the foulers.
I think the most compelling argument for a rule change is that fouling a player who has no part in the play is completely out of the realm of normal basketball. Most sports have rules to negate unnecessarily executing fouls that would benefit the fouling team. Football has the "penalty decline" option. Soccer has a rule that if the foul does not impede the offense, no call. I don't see why basketball does not have something like this. Fouling to stop the clock is legit basketball play because the foul occur IN PLAY. (If you foul someone not in play to stop the clock at the end, you are punished by 2 FTs and the loss of possession.) In other words, there are ways for the offensive team to avoid being fouled in these situations (passing the ball around, dribbling away from the defense, etc.). There is no way for the offensive team to avoid the hacking tactic at all other than sitting the bad shooter.
You said it much better than I did. It helps to think about the origin of the "foul." Basketball is a very simple game - make the ball in the peach basket the most times. At some point, someone realized that it wasn't very fair to physically affect someone's attempt at making the shot, so the foul was invented... to benefit the team that was unfairly affected. The game has evolved since then and smart coaches have since found loopholes, but at it's core, a foul is in no way supposed to benefit the fouler.
Imagine if there was some rule in baseball where a team could choose who they pitched to. Not strategically force a batter to switch to the other side of the plate or intentionally walk a guy to get to a worse hitter (exploiting a weakness) but legitimately say, I don't want Craig Biggio to beat me so I'm going to face Adam Everett 9 times in a row. But hey, hitting is an important skill in baseball so this is fair game, right? It sounds crazy, yet it's essentially what we are allowing with this rule.
Myself and others have said it several times, but I feel the solution is elegantly simple...just make the bonus optional for off-the-ball fouls. It doesn't matter if it was intentional or not. It takes that judgement completely away from the referees, and it's let's the offensive team choose whether they want to take advantage of a foul against a good free throw shooter or decline a disadvantage of having a poor free throw shooter being force to shoot free throws.
Filed to ESPN: Adam Silver told me pregame that NBA will have "full-throated conversations" this summer regarding rules to ban Hack-a-Shaq. Tim MacMahon
How is fouling a guy 80 feet away from the basket WITH the ball any different a part of "normal basketball" than doing the exact same thing if he doesn't have the basketball? It's not like you were attempting to stop the guy from scoring or doing it by accident or anything else. Him having the basketball has no real impact on the play. I think it's interesting that Doc Rivers, who has to deal with the strategy every day, has mixed feelings about getting rid of it, and that Adam Silver wanted to change it until hearing from GMs and players who have shifted him back onto the fence. It seems from a basketball standpoint, people inside the game don't want it changed and think it should be a legitimate strategy. The primary driver for change is aesthetics (boring TV) - which is a real concern, but very different from making the underlying game itself better.
