“That gives us an advantage,” Frazier says. It can’t be understated how much drawing offensive fouls has paved the way for the modernization, and eventual normalization, of help defense.
In that regard, charges are distinctly modern. As long as they’re willing to rotate hard, read the scouting report, and understand positioning, guards who would otherwise have no business thwarting the opposition can become defensive stoppers in the paint. They actually democratize the ability of the game’s smaller, less athletic players to play effective defense. Charges aren’t a mere brutish holdover from a bygone sports era. See it from Frazier’s 6’1 view, and things change. The NBA’s best charge-drawers insist that with some experience and discretion, the most dangerous attempts to draw charges can be phased out of the game.
#ACY NBA PROFESSIONAL#
And that, the argument goes, does not even touch on the damage it can inflict on the defender.īut recklessness - Russell Westbrook notwithstanding - doesn’t, in the long view, serve professional basketball players very well. When a defender undercuts a guy who is jumping full-throttle to the basket, bodies are inevitably going to crash to the floor. How many great plays have been waived off as offensive fouls? How many wrist injuries could be prevented if this simple rule didn’t exist? These questions lead to the big question: Why do we have charges at all? After all, there is nothing about the charge that is fundamental to the sport.Īnd reckless attempts to draw charges can be downright dangerous. There’s nothing quite as mystifying (or frustrating) as seeing a poster dunk get waived off because it’s deemed an offensive foul. Charging calls often invalidate the most entertaining plays: dunks, high-octane layups, and dimes in transition.
The charge rule, although its criticisms operate a decibel level lower than that of intentional fouling or lottery reform, has always been controversial. In an attempt to take a charge, Frazier hit the deck and sprained his left wrist. 3, in a game that will be best remembered for LeBron James scorching the Washington Wizards for a career-high 57 points, the Wizards’ Tim Frazier suffered what has become an everyday malady for players of his ilk.
0 kommentar(er)
