After The Opening Games Of The NBA Playoffs The "Banning Charges" Debate Is All The Rage
Justin Ford. Getty Images.As entertaining as the opening weekend of the NBA Playoffs may have been, there is one main storyline that is dominating the playoff discourse today.
Banning the charge.
This of course is the result of what happened to both Ja Morant and Giannis, who ended up getting hurt on plays where the defender attempted to take a charge. It goes without saying that anyone getting injured sucks, but things may be getting a little out of hand.
Whenever this debate comes up, there are no winners. We all lose. Depending on who your favorite team is, you probably view this debate a certain way. I already know there are some who are reading this blog who will comment that it's hypocritical for me to even be writing this because my favorite team has defenders who take a ton of charges, from Marcus Smart to Derrick White to Blake Griffin.
I'm also not so sure all this uproar isn't just due to who ended up getting hurt. Ja and Giannis are superstars. Would there still be the same outrage to ban the charge/change the rules if a role player got hurt? Probably not.
When it comes to these plays specifically, things aren't that crystal clear
Where things get tricky is both Ja and Giannis made the decision to try and go through/over their oppponent. So much of the discourse today has been that charges when a player is airborne is fucked up and should be removed. That is 100000% correct.
That is also not what either of those plays was.
If you want to say AD should have tried to contest the shot as opposed to taking the charge because he's a 7fter who already had 7 blocks in that game fine. But Ja and Giannis were not airborne before a player moved into their path in order to try and take a charge. They just weren't.
When it comes to the Giannis play, this is kind of what he does offensively. He gets a head of steam and tries to go through opposing players. The defender has a right to his space. They called a blocking foul on the play anyways. To make it seem like AD or Kevin Love did something dirty on those plays just isn't true. That's not me saying it, that's Jrue Holiday saying it
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Defense is hard enough in the NBA. So much has already been taken away from what a defender is allowed to do, I'm not sure what the "ban the charge" people expect a defender to in these situations. Just get out of the way and let Giannis dunk? The same fans complaining about these calls don't usually complain when Giannis plows through defenders, do they? They scream to get in the weight room.
It's possible that Ja could have decided to try a floater in that spot, but he went for the poster, as he often does. Giannis could have passed to a wide open Bobby Portis as soon as he got to the FT line, but he did what he usually does which is take it hard to the rim and led with his knee right to Love's chest. This is not undercutting an offensive guy in the air, so it's a little confusing why that is the topic being discussed. Everyone agrees that is bullshit and should probably be a flagrant, just like the landing space foul is.
I get that people prefer that guys actually jump and contest plays like this, but as a defender until the league changes how the rule of verticality is interpreted/called, they are at a disadvantage there as well. How many times have we seen someone jump on those type of plays and then always get called with the foul? There's no consistency with that, just like there's not really too much consistency with block/charges, so I'm not sure what the answer is, I just don't think the NBA should be in the business of taking more away from defenders.
The good news is that Giannis looks to be OK. We're still waiting on word about Morant, and I think everyone is hoping for the best there. These were just unfortunate results from dangerous plays where the offensive player's playstyle directly played a role in what happened. As Jrue said, when you leave your feet or try and go through someone, you take a risk. That's basketball.