The Way The NBA Continues To Gaslight Their Fans Is Starting To Get Out Of Hand
Jess Rapfogel. Getty Images.Earlier this week, Anthony Edwards did not hold back after the Wolves huge win on the road over the Thunder when it came to calling out the refs on their bullshit
If you were curious what had Edwards so bent out of shape, I think it most likely had to do with this what went down on his big dunk against SGA
This was a no-call in real time, which led to Edwards naturally losing his shit and willingly accepting the fine that he knew was coming by calling out the refs like this. I mean, we all have eyes, we all can see SGA clearly grabbing his arm on that dunk. I don't care who you root for, use your brain. That's a foul.
The good news is this play qualified for the L2M, so we were going to see what the league office thought about that play. Given how public Edwards was about how awful the refs were, I was interested to see how they tried to spinzone that play. I mean how could you argue anything other than a foul on something like that?
Easy. You see whenever a play like this comes up where the entire world knows the ref fucked up and the player was right (think Jaylen Brown getting hit in the head vs IND), the NBA does what they do best. They gaslight the shit out of the fans in their L2M report. When it came to this play, please read what the league said
"Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC) brings his hand towards Edwards' (MIN) arm, and the contact during the shot near the rim is marginal."
Marginal contact and a correct no call.
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I mean that is a lie. We all see the picture. How on earth could anyone realistically call that contact "marginal"? His hand is gripping Ant's arm. It's clear as day. But this is what the league does and why everyone has such a problem with their officiating. They just hide behind this term "marginal contact", but yet if you even slightly touch Embiid/Giannis/Luka etc, that's an automatic foul. How is that "marginal contact" a foul, but completely grabbing someone's arm as they attempt a dunk not a foul?
Not only that, but the fine did come for Edwards, and it wasn't the usual 25k either. They bumped it up to 40k
All this does is further show the problem with Adam Silver's officiating. They were wrong, the player called them out for being wrong, we as fans have CLEAR evidence that it was wrong, and then the next day the league comes out and says well actually, that's not a foul. Instead of ya know, admitting they were at fault, you just know because Edwards went on that rant they had to justify it. The same way they did in the L2M report following the Jaylen play, who also called them out after the game
I think as fans we all accept that calls are going to be wrong and things will be missed. That's life in the NBA. But for the league to come out and gaslight all of us like they're doing on these types of plays like our eyes don't work only makes this situation worse. If they came out and said "yeah we fucked up, that was an incorrect non call", OK, it's over. Everyone moves on. But doubling down like that? Adam Silver should be ashamed of himself.
We already know he doesn't give a shit about his officiating problem, but at least treat your fans with even an ounce of respect when it comes to these situations. Doing what they did here is the exact opposite of that, and for a guy who cares about people tuning into his product, Adam Silver should probably cut the shit.