Yeah Tunesquad52, agreed. I think maybe one's opinion on this is affected by where you grew up and what the attitude was regarding this stuff.
I grew up in Maine and in that time there were certain things you just don't do. For example, you do not touch a Lobsterman's traps and you don't take guys out at the knees or when they're in mid air. And if you do, you can expect to get punched in the head, maybe literally (a fight) or figuratively, in the form of a very heated shoving and yelling match to lay down the line and call the BS when it happens.
I can tell you from experience that if it's a Lobster trap where talking about, you can expect a fist fight that you won't win...
On the court, it would rarely mean a fight with punches thrown - but most often a "very" heated discussion with some heavy shoving and a clear "warning" to the guy who did it about the consequences for him if it happens again. And there most definitely would be consequences.
And playground ball was played with the "no blood, no foul" rule, which just meant don't call ticky tack fouls, get after it, but don't be an idiot and go around clobbering guys.
This lead to some incredibly physical and competitive games that were a blast. But there is such and easy and clear line to see between a great, physical brand of basketball and "dangerous" basketball - and you "never" make dangerous plays on the court, that's not what the game's about and it's unacceptable.
So I'm for very severe penalties against guys who make those plays and/or guys who initiate a confrontation that leads to a donnybrook on the court.
Based on friends I've known from Australia, my perception is that you guys don't cop any BS down there so it doesn't suprise me that flagrant plays come with stiffer penalties than here in the US game.
It's a really interesting point of debate to me, because it's about the psychology of how different people look at this issue and I think a lot of that depends on how you came up.
There was an interesting story about two young, rogue male elephants who were harassing and in some cases attacking and killing other elephants within their group. They couldn't figure out why these two rogue males were acting so unusually for the longest time and they tried everything they could think of to put an end to it without success. Then it dawned on one of the researchers that most of the adult males in the herd had been killed for their tusks. So they identified two alpha adult male elephants from another herd and mixed them in with this other heard that was having so much trouble. The two adult males very quickly kicked the crap out of the two, young rogue elephants over the period of about 2-3 weeks every time they were bullying the other members of the heard. The problem was quickly diffused and the two rogue elephants assimilated back into the herd without another instance of bad behavior.
Point is, controlled and direct confrontation is Ok, in fact it's a a very good thing in my book. And if a player is making dangerous plays on a team mate of mine on the court, they're going to get an earful and some confrontation immediately when it happens.
And that will continue until the NBA and its Refs decide to make it so painful to the perpetrator of plays like that - that you don't see it anymore.
Again, I'm all for hard fouls when necessary (meaning tying someone up or a hard slap across the arms as they're up for a shot, major wrestling matches in the post, bump and grind D and heavy banging on the boards.
But you don't take anyone out in mid air - you try to hold them up and make sure they land Ok - and if you do make the play, expect some guys in your grill to discuss it with you - and a lot more than that if you do it again.
Topic: Something I don't understand... (Read 7431 times)