If the Thunder go back-to-back, I genuinely think a lot of people are going to tune out of the NBA. Nobody wants to watch a team built on favorable whistles, theatrical flopping, and algorithm-driven hype masquerading as basketball purity
It’s too consistent with OKC as a unit.
This is something that they’re coached to do.
Any contact you don’t like? Fall.
Make a bad play? Fall.
Defender too close? Fall.
Get boxed out? Fall.
No one touches you? Fall.
Get hit in the chest? Hold your neck and lay on the floor.
Here’s a crazy idea several fans have sent me and posted on our Facebook group:
“Put Mason Plumblee in there next to Wemby or Luke.
Dude has experience and lots of NASTY plus he can grab loads of rebounds and run in transition faster than any other big. If he gets a technical or thrown out, oh well.”
My 2 cents on foul-baiting/flopping:
It’s always been perfectly within the rules to do it. But it’s always just been up to players to have the self-respect and integrity to not over-do it.
Like, honestly, a well-timed occasional strategic flop, I can accept.
But when it becomes a hallmark of your whole game, when you’re seeking it out every time or every other time you touch the ball…
That’s when sportsmanship is killed by gamesmanship. That’s when winning becomes completely divorced from ethics. That’s when the game becomes unwatchable.
That’s when the rules have to change.
When players can no longer be trusted to reasonably govern themselves, that’s when official governance has to be increased.
Same thing happens in all aspects of society, when you think about it. And that’s just unfortunate.
Something here has to change.
Jay Williams says he can’t root for the Thunder because of all the foul baiting:
“As a fan of the game, I just want to see the game respected. There are times where I watch OKC play, I don’t feel like they respect the process of the game. It’s too much foul baiting. When you fall down 95% of every shot you take in the 4th, I get physiologically exhausted”
NBA has a huge problem on their hands. This should verge best series in years but OKC and the way these refs call games makes it almost impossible to watch.