The NBA's Problem Is Economics, Not Basketball

I played pickup basketball a lot as a youth and the people who were better than me were better at fouling and getting away with it. I think that's every bit as much true of the pro game which has been dogged with refereeing scandals. It is better than professional wrestling but for many reasons I don't completely believe it such as: the "star" player grandstanding to the point where you think the other side isn't really making them work, the suppression of the full court press, etc.

(Not like my dad and I didn't love the epic rivalry the Celtics had with the Lakers in the late 1980s)

On the other hand I love going to men's or women's basketball games at my Uni where you can usually buy a general admission ticket and sit in the front row.

>the people who were better than me were better at fouling and getting away with it.

It ain't cheating if you ain't caught.

Honesty is losing in the game of life.

While I don’t disagree about the grandstanding and theatrics ruining the NBA, I take issue with those who complain that better players are just getting away with fouls and cheating. Basketball, despite the rules around fouls and illegal contact, is a very physical and tough game. Being tough enough to work through some of the contact (both legal and illegal) is very important to being a high level player. I think it’s reductive and petty to effectively say that they’re just better because they hit more and harder. Even Michael Jordan had to work hard at toughening up to get past Detroit in the late 80s and early 90s.

This. The inconsistency of foul calls. I understand the mentality of "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" and "if you're not flopping, you're not trying", but it ruins the game for me.

We should train ML to make the foul calls in real-time.

Then get rid of the strict rulebook definition of what a foul is. Have the fans vote on past plays, what should be a defensive/offensive/no foul. Then train the LLM based on the opinions and let it make the foul calls.

Flopping techs should be handed out like candy. They can be determined during commercials. I don't know a single fan who wouldn't love this. I'm curious why the NBA doesn't crack down more. I'm assuming it has something to do with internal politics, maybe with the star players.

The owners have ceded way too much power to the players.

I was into sailing and had an Olympic level race coach that said the upper levels of racing courses were mainly about how to cheat and get away with it as there was a greater ROI for cheating than getting .001% better and faster by mastering the skills.