I was indifferent about it when the season started, still indifferent to it now. I just don't care about it on any level.
With that said, I think the talk about sportsmanship is way overblown. The other team doesn't want to get shown up after going down big? They should play harder and not go down by 20+ points. The Bulls gave up early on, why should it be on the Celtics to coddle them and massage their egos? Don't want to be embarrassed, start by not embarrassing yourselves.
I agree with you about running up the score in general. But do you feel like intentional fouling up 30 and making the game go longer falls under this? To me it is even about trying to play basketball at that point.
I don't really have an issue with it. Either the league wants teams to care about the IST or they don't. You can't put in things like point differential and then call it unsportsmanlike when coaches and teams actually strategize to get the job done. In this tournament, the point differential does matter and hack-a-Drummond is a proven strategy with an 11-year sample size that Andre hasn't been able correct.
We still had an opportunity for home court advantage in the semis with a point differential of 39, I think. Joe went for it. This is the NBA and these players make millions of dollars as the best in the world, right? Again, if you get embarrassed when the opposing team exploits an obvious weakness, improve the weakness or expect your coach to adjust.
Exactly, this is not CYO basketball where you feel bad about embarrassing some kid who has no business being on the court to begin with. These are professional basketball players making millions of dollars to be out there. It's on them to improve their professional skill. If they can't shoot free throws the opponent should exploit it fully.
I went to my daughter's first middle school game last night. The other team beat them 78-4. If the sixth grade girls can take it, grown men should be able to.
I remember being beaten 100-6 when I was in middle school
And to Celticsclay's point, I vaguely remember being really overmatched, both physically and skills wise. I vaguely remember trying to defend a kid that was head and shoulders taller than us and just shot over us all day
1But we gave it a go. It was either that or not play a game at all.
I feel like the reason the players are speaking out is because running up the score in general is seen as bad form in American sports, even in professional leagues...it's part of all these unwritten rules like don't swing on a 3-0 when you're up big, don't flip your bat and admire your home run, don't dunk the ball if you are leading by 30+ with 2 min to go, just kneel if you are up big in football, etc. They don't want to be on the wrong end of being labelled as violating one of those unwritten rules.
Some of it is predicated on things that make logical sense, like why try to make football plays and run the risk of injury in a contact sport, or why keep starters in a basketball game when you can manage their workload and reduce the risk of injury...but others are just there to basically not make the other team look or feel bad. We saw Cryrie throw the ball in the stands when Jamal Murray tried to shoot a 3 to get 50 at the end of a Denver-Boston game in 2018, we've seen Cam Payne from Phoenix get mad at Zion for doing a 360 dunk with 1.9 seconds to go and his team up 128-117...they get cut up because they feel the other team is showboating on them and it's not good form.
Personally I can understand the former, I have no time for the latter. If you want to stop the other team doing whatever they want, then do so on the court. Whining about being showboated on when you are a professional player in a league where even vets make $2m a season and stars can make $30-$60m, I don't think you have any call to expect the other team to go easy on you. The way I see it, not letting up is the best way to show respect, because you respect the other team enough to not want to give them even a sniff of coming back. And teams have come back from huge deficits, both in football (28-3 anyone), basketball (think of all the 20+ point leads that can get erased in a couple of minutes when people get hot from 3) or baseball where teams have come back from 8-10 run deficits.
These are pros, not school teams. School teams you're trying to teach them about sportsmanship, winning with grace and losing with pride, and also because, like my and Roy's daughter's middle school teams, there can be a big imbalance in the talent level on both sides. Even in college sports you can have a Div 1 team end up playing a lesser team where the talent disparity is apparent, and the coaches may decide to take their foot off the gas if the game gets decided. But I don't think pro players can use that excuse.
What's interesting is this running up the score aversion seemed to be a uniquely American thing - when I lived in Sydney and London and watched rugby and cricket games teams had zero issue with running up the score, if you look at the recent Rugby World Cup France beat Namibia 96-0, the NZ All Blacks beat Italy 96-17, England beat Chile 71-0, etc. In those countries the fans and players get insulted if the other team takes their foot off the gas, because that's seen as being patronizing and a sign of disrespect. It's funny how different cultures view this through different lenses
All that being said, it's the first year and they will probably solicit feedback from players, coaches and other experts to work out what they can bring forward and what they can tweak. I suspect the intentional fouling thing was only done because Drummond can't shoot free throws to save his life. I agree it looks dumb but I think it was done to gain an advantage towards pushing the point differential as high as they could to ensure qualification, which only happens when the final whistle blows. If Drummond hadn't been on the court, if Billy had subbed him out, then they wouldn't be fouling anyone as there would be no advantage. Isn't that the reason why Ben Simmons can't be in Brooklyn's closing lineup? Because he shoots 30% from the line? If Billy didn't want Andre to be fouled and look bad at the line then he should have subbed him out, it was under his control.