[ESPiN: Lakers Frustrated at Refs Resort to Hands Free D

Handed LeBitch a L
Beat LA
50 point TD

and all everyone wants to talk about today is officiating! No, no, not the Rockets W. Not the Rockets W. No, not the TD either. We talkin' about officiating!



I wish they were so concerned about the officiating during last year's Conference Finals.

 

This thing has escalated. SAS and Skip Bayless are calling out the refs, even. When tf did everyone become anti-Harden? They were always there, but randomly became super vocal after last night's game.

 

Yep. Players who get lots of calls are always hated by fans of other teams.

 

Losers need a reason.

 

Weird. Who was ejected from the Lakers, again?

 

The nba and the media is such a complete farce. People need to realize this is essentially the WWE. We got raped of a championship last year by the refs and now the media is complaining for the Lakers. Honestly the whole thing can **** off.

 

keep them hates coming, i will drink them all yummy!!

 

Harden should have had 22 foul shots just because of the movie John Carter, no one should have to watch that shiot show.

 

People have always hated harden because of the foul thing. Look at Reddit or realgm. It's not a new thing.

 

It's partly on Lebron himself. He doesn't attack relentlessly like Harden when he gets those 20fta type games. Even when you look at career FTA per game, he still takes a lot of FT's without the attack mentality and as you mentioned he gets away with playing aggressive D when he chooses to actually play D. The other thing I look at is complaining and whining. The T-Mac effect. Every time T-mac would drive he would scream and never get a call and i'd hate it, but now I go back and watch and it was just baiting and the refs having the egos they have will have less respect for that and the arm throwing and waving after every single drive(like Eric Gordon too). LeBron gets away with barreling through and pushing players off on attacks(like Shaq would get away with the shoulder push off) and can't bait calls on those drives like Harden-mostly I think because LeBron tends to extend and usually does it straight on whereas Harden creates contact at difficult angles. Other than those plays which I can understand opposing fans frustration with, Harden does get swiped at a lot and being a lefty, he's always getting fouled. That's the defenders fault. That ball always looks so juicy hanging out there but players reach across to Hardens left and swipe and get all arm. Never fails.

Harden is going for his 6th season of over 10 fta per game. By comparison, LeBron has 3 seasons of over 10fta. Kobe has 3. AI has 3. Michael Jordan has 2. DWade has 2. KD 1. Westbrook 1. Only non big man I can think of on Harden level is older guys like Jerry West with 5 seasons and Oscar with 7.

Of course we can go advanced and see LeBron has a free throw attempt rate even higher than Jordan despite the narrative that LeBron doesn't get any calls like Harden or Jordan who got touched and it was called(as you see in comments dominating youtube). So people will keep up the whole LeBron doesn't get any calls narrative-Jordan got all the calls narrative- Shaq didn't get any calls narrative-Barkley got all the calls narrative despite Lebron being .1 less than Mj career fta and higher free throw attempt rate and Shaq having 10 seasons over 10 fta per game including over 13 one season compared to just 2 over 10fta for Barkley.

In the grand picture of NBA history, LeBron gets to the line just fine for his star status and gets away with a lot just like Shaq. It's just that Harden is at a crazy level higher than everyone else in the modern NBA.

Take it a step further and Harden(with matador defense-2.6) and Jordan (2.6) get more fouls per game called on them for their career than LeBron (1.8).

The one and only player in NBA history that i think should have a legitimate complaint is Yao Ming.

 

LeBron: 29/5/4
Harden: 50/10/11
Must be the refs

 

They have to defend like that though.