World Cup is beyond stupid...
- Thread starter LittleBigDog
- Start date
It's the first game of the World Cup and people are going overboard. Plenty of people agree that it wasn't horrible. The minority, clearly, but there are others. Ruud van Nistelrooy and Michael Ballack were on the post-game talking about how it was soft but not just terrible.
Ok, even though I never implied in my original post that Euros were the only ones to flop in today's game, let's table flopping for now and just talk about the game as a whole.
Throughout the late 80s and into the 90s, for every Magic, Bird, or Jordan that was out there, there was also a Laimbeer, Oakley, Mason, or Barkley. The league was full of guys that would send you home with a black eye if you stepped out of line. Granted, the rules have changed greatly since then and I don't disagree with that in the least, but are you honestly going to sit here and say that absolutely 0% of the league's current manipulation of officials and overall perception of softness has anything to do with the international influx?
Whether you want to blame the rules or the Euro style first seems like a chicken or the egg argument, but at the end of the day, the rules and officials didn't create Pau Gasol, Manu, or Tony Parker. The rules just enabled them and now we have guys like Chris Paul learning from the masters.
To close, let me be clear that my intent is not to come on here and Euro-bash. I love a lot of the things that they brought to the table when they started coming to the NBA on a more consistent basis. There are obviously a couple things that I'm not a fan of, though.
Throughout the late 80s and into the 90s, for every Magic, Bird, or Jordan that was out there, there was also a Laimbeer, Oakley, Mason, or Barkley. The league was full of guys that would send you home with a black eye if you stepped out of line. Granted, the rules have changed greatly since then and I don't disagree with that in the least, but are you honestly going to sit here and say that absolutely 0% of the league's current manipulation of officials and overall perception of softness has anything to do with the international influx?
Whether you want to blame the rules or the Euro style first seems like a chicken or the egg argument, but at the end of the day, the rules and officials didn't create Pau Gasol, Manu, or Tony Parker. The rules just enabled them and now we have guys like Chris Paul learning from the masters.
To close, let me be clear that my intent is not to come on here and Euro-bash. I love a lot of the things that they brought to the table when they started coming to the NBA on a more consistent basis. There are obviously a couple things that I'm not a fan of, though.
It's been around forever... you just notice it more because there's more on TV
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/flopping-in-the-nba-a-history-of-nonviolence/
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/flopping-in-the-nba-a-history-of-nonviolence/
I like this idea. Players would stop flopping immediately if there was a chance that it could be reviewed and they could be given a yellow card to start the next match.
It's simple causation vs. correlation
They made it more difficult for defenders to improve and open up the offenses. The league got more popular and got on TV more. At the same time, the game had gotten more global and Europeans were being brought into the league because they played a more open and perimeter oriented style. They didn't cause or increase anything. They just happened to be coming into the league when the league got on TV more and defenders were looking for any edge they could get. The refs let defenders get away with it, and that's why we are at a point where somebody the size of Mike Conley can somehow knock Reggie Evans three rows deep. More/better/whatever flopping and more Euros just isn't related whatsoever. But it's like the Lebron/MJ thing. People grow more and more fond of the past "glory days" so that it becomes something even more spectacular or perfect than it actually was.
They made it more difficult for defenders to improve and open up the offenses. The league got more popular and got on TV more. At the same time, the game had gotten more global and Europeans were being brought into the league because they played a more open and perimeter oriented style. They didn't cause or increase anything. They just happened to be coming into the league when the league got on TV more and defenders were looking for any edge they could get. The refs let defenders get away with it, and that's why we are at a point where somebody the size of Mike Conley can somehow knock Reggie Evans three rows deep. More/better/whatever flopping and more Euros just isn't related whatsoever. But it's like the Lebron/MJ thing. People grow more and more fond of the past "glory days" so that it becomes something even more spectacular or perfect than it actually was.
Thats starting to happen. MLS has had it for a few years I believe, and I think that will spread soon