Golden State Warriors’ all-defensive forward Draymond Green is enjoying watching NBA basketball more this season after rule changes to limit drawing fouls have gone into effect.
This past summer the NBA enacted an officiating change to discourage offensive players from making “overt, abrupt or abnormal non-basketball moves.”
For the 2021-22 NBA season, there will be an interpretive change in the officiating of overt, abrupt or abnormal non-basketball moves by offensive players with the ball in an effort to draw fouls. The following Points of Education videos showcase areas where a change was needed:
— NBA Official (@NBAOfficial) September 30, 2021
You know the types of plays these are. An offensive player, already with an advantage of pump faking or getting a defender off balance, instead of just going into a normal shot or drive to the basket, the offensive player jumps into the already compromised defender.
This type of play has long been viewed as cheating the game and an interruption of the flow of an otherwise beautiful game.
A visit to #NBATwitter during any game that featured the league’s best players at this maneuver (Steph Curry, Trae Young, and James Harden) would set off epic rants.
James Harden is the posterboy for this rule change. Long seen as a player that takes advantage and baits officials into foul calls, the prevailing thought is that he would suffer the most. Early signs this season appear to point in that direction.
Green definitely sees Harden as the player who influenced a generation with this particular tactic.
“James is one of the best at it,” Green said. “At driving and drawing fouls, drawing fouls from the three-point line, he’s one of the best at it. So I definitely remember those games of him going 24-for-24 from the free-throw line. And when you got a guy that shifty, and the moment you touch him they can hook and you’re called for a foul, it’s impossible to guard. You started to see a lot of guys master it, but they all learned from James for sure because he was the master before anybody else ever picked it up.”
The rate at which players are drawing fouls is down in the early part of the season and viewers have commented on the improved game flow.
Coach Nick of BBALLBREAKDOWN gets into specific details of how officials are calling games so far this season.
It’s no surprise a defensive minded player like Draymond loves the new rule changes. The NBA is the best league in the world. Players like Harden, Young, Curry, Durant, etc. are among the most skilled players to ever play the game.
Defending players of that caliber is already an impossible task. If the way officials are going to call certain plays now aids the defense, That’s a plus for Draymond and defenders everywhere.
This game is all about securing an advantage, and so far defenders are loving it. Teams like The New York Knicks and Miami Heat are thriving in the early season under the rule changes.
But as a legendary Hall of Famer once said, “What these youngbloods have to understand. That this game has always been, and will always be, about buckets.”
It will take time for the league’s elite bucket-getters to adapt. But they will.
