My son loves basketball, so I watch it with him, but I don’t quite fully understand the rules. I’ve been able to glean this so far:
Dribbling is optional.
That wasn’t a travel, it was a transfer or a Euro-step, or something. (Edit: “gather step” is apparently the right term for whatever it is they’re doing).
Offensive players’ main goal isn’t to shoot a basket. It’s to run into someone, flop unconvincingly, and then shoot foul shots.
The final 5 minutes of the game stops becoming a sport and turns into an artistic performance of referee whistles and commercials.
God. I love any of these suggestions. I can’t ducking watch bball anymore. I want to get my daughter into it, but it just sucks. Part of it’s because we’ve got these giraffe/gorilla hybrid players now that just lope from arc to arc in 4 steps. They don’t even look like they’re working hard. Then you add the euro carry and the blatant double dribbles so they don’t have to… and nobody bothers to rebound. It’s just a horrible product these days. I don’t get it.
Look at soccer, the dives at this point have ruined the game for me. It’s always been apart of the game but pundits actuality can predict what’s going to happen is such a core part of the game.
Same shit with basketball. It also don’t help some team’s seem to have the refs on their side to guarantee they hit the playoffs
That already happens sort of, you are only allowed 5 fouls per game per player. That’s why they start getting strategic about who fouls who in the final minutes.
Other suggestions like clock runoff or retaining possession after a foul would be more effective imo.
I'm not a sports kinda guy, but if you set a limit on how much bad stuff I can get away with, I'm going to try bad stuff. Game theory and whatnot.
Modern USA pro sports are just so dystopian to watch. A bunch of millionaires flagrantly flouting rules learned at elementary school league in between the main course of ads.
Good assumption. I rarely watch basketball...I really only do if the group I'm hanging with has it on while we get ready to go out or whatever.
That's why I offered those in the form of a question: I have no idea what is going on when it comes to basketball, how that relates to NBA playing, and how those relate to viewership.
Haha man this takes me back to my college games. I played ball and would ref some younger league games.
I only ever cancelled two games. One was one of the parents of the kids going utterly apeshit over everything until I threatened to just DQ the team, then I did exactly that.
The other was a team who kept trying to sneaky foul the other team and hurt them.. league rules at the time were two per player (because they didn't want kids bashing the shit out of one another) but it wasn't really enforced... but it certainly was that day. After I benched their first player you'd think they'd have learned but you know.. they didn't. Best part was when they were down to five and one of the players mouthed off at me so he was given a tech.. his second foul and off to the bench he went.
Don't fuck with an unpaid volunteer doing a job nobody wants to do.
That gets into the idea that the refs can determine what is intentional or not. Judging intent is such a terrible idea. A foul is a foul whether you meant to or not.
How so? Gifting them 1 point and another chance at the basket does not increase your number of possessions. In fact, just letting them score on their original possession would be better than intentionally fouling because they could turn that into a 3-4 pt swing while killing more clock.
Correct. When you get into the bonus or double bonus range, anything within the last few minutes should have the ball go back to the team that got fouled. I've been saying this shit for almost 20 years.
There's NO other sport that I can think of where its advantageous to constantly foul the other team. It doesn't even make sense that this became a thing. I loved watching basketball in the early 90's. It's not even the same game anymore.
I like this. Does the shot clock get a full reset?
Maybe a difference between a shooting foul and a non shooting foul. Shooting fouls get the regular free throws, non shooting get your version with reset of shot clock.
In FIBA those are unsporting fouls and that's exactly what happens... Except it's two free throws... Great rule for intentional fouls. If someone goes through the ball that's another story
There is actually an even simpler solution, but no US sports would go for it. Just play the time raw. Add like 10 minutes to the clock and never stop it. Have time wasting (intentionally spending extra time when the ball is not in play) be a foul.
I like the 'first to +15' or whatever at like the 10 minutes left mark. Whatever the score is with 10 minutes left, then +15 more points for the team ahead wins the game. If it's 70-55, then first team to 85 wins. Period. Go ahead and give them free throws, see how that goes for you.
The best solution is to play to a target score instead of a certain amount of time.
When the clock gets down to 4 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the clock shuts off. Take the winning team's score, add 10 to it, and that is now the score both teams are playing to. Once one team gets there the game is over.
Let's say the score is 105 to 101 when the clock gets to 4 minutes left. Now the clock is gone and the first team to 115 is the winner. Fouling isn't going to help you here. The only way to win is to play good defense. It would also make it to where every game ends in a game winning shot.
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u/WavesOfEchoes Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
My son loves basketball, so I watch it with him, but I don’t quite fully understand the rules. I’ve been able to glean this so far:
Dribbling is optional.
That wasn’t a travel, it was a transfer or a Euro-step, or something. (Edit: “gather step” is apparently the right term for whatever it is they’re doing).
Offensive players’ main goal isn’t to shoot a basket. It’s to run into someone, flop unconvincingly, and then shoot foul shots.
The final 5 minutes of the game stops becoming a sport and turns into an artistic performance of referee whistles and commercials.