I don’t know where to post sports questions, but I’ll make it sound like a bitch none the less.
I occasionally watch NBA basketball and notice that walking the ball is legal. Run to the hoop, no dribble, walk three steps and go!
Yeah, these three step, no dribble shots are cool, but its a foul. Is walking decriminalized in the NBA to make the game better? I’m sorry, I think an athlete who makes more money in a game than a make in three years can play it correctly.
QUIT walking! Its a basketball not a poodle!!:mad:
No, not really. The teams that play defense in the playoffs do so all year. Those that don’t play defense in the regular season tend not to do so during the playoffs. See Detroit and Dallas respectively.
Anyway, as for the OP…traveling’s a problem and everyone bitches about it, but to be fair to the refs, a lot of the times when it happens it happens with the player driving to the basket in a crowd. We can see pretty well from above, but refs don’t really have that luxury and it can be hard to see.
There also isn’t nearly as much travelling as you think there is. If you watch in slo-mo, what looks like three steps is often really just two. They’re just really, really fast.
While I am not nearly stupid enough to sit here and try to argue that traveling (and the lackof calls regarding it) is not a problem in the NBA, there are a couple of reasons why it isn’t called with the frequency it is perceived to occur
The players are big and fast. Hence when they step, run, and leap, they are covering large amounts of territory that most people wouldn’t cover. This can give the impression of a walk even though it’s just speed and leaping ability.
The refs are human. Yes, they actually do miss calls, especially because a lot of what has to be watched involves the ball, hands, body contact, and floor positioning. Traveling is just one of a myriad number of things occuring on a given play.
Combine the 2 points above and you have really fast players and plays being watched by refs that don’t have the ability to instantly review everything in their heads. Some travels occur simply because the refs can’t see everything at once.
Player reputation plays into it. Go back and watch tapes of just about any Patrick Ewing post up. That man covered more ground than Cristo but the refs didn’t tend to call it. Why? He was a superstar and he consistently made the same moves. Refs will build up a tolerance. Right or wrong, it happens.
If you want to track a violation that never gets called, forget travling. That’s childs play. Watch for palming. That one puts the travel to shame.
I think there has been a change in how traveling is called–and a massive one at that.
I used to watch the Bulls fairly often, back before they were the BULLS, back on TV and sometimes from the nosebleed seats in old Chicago Stadium.
Then along came the eighties and I moved on to other pursuits.
Fast forward, or perhaps “travel,” to the middle nineties. And I watch a couple of basketball games after a very long hiatus.
And what do I notice? Not that the players are bigger, or stronger, or faster, or that the basket seems smaller, or that there are more fouls called…
Nope. What I notice is that my crystallized recollection of “traveling” is no more. “He’s traveling,” I say the first time somebody barrels down the court; and then, “He’s traveling!” And then, “Hey! That was a travel!” And, “Ref! You gonna let him get away with it?” And finally, just plain “TRAVEL!” I swear. Every other time down the court, they palm the ball and take those big ol’ steps and nobody calls it.
Now. Maybe my memory is wrong. Or maybe they just called things back then that weren’t really infractions. But it sure seemed like night and day, especially the first couple of games I watched back in '95 or whenever it was.
And even now, I can’t help but roll my eyes–and roll my arms in the signal–when I see soem of those guys driving toward the basket…
NBA referees are horrible. Half the time they don’t call anything, and the other half of the time they get it wrong. I’ve stopped watching NBA games, it makes me so mad. This year, I refuse to watch even the playoffs and finals.
Travelling isn’t called on a consistent basis in the college game, either. I’ve been to a number of games at our place where I’d swear fewer than half of just the obvious travels were called, never mind the ticky-tack calls. It seemed to hold up for our guys as well as their guys, so it wasn’t my bias creeping in
Our college plays in the low-mid-majors of the Metro Atlantic, so I don’t think it’s a case of “the superstar gets the call,” either. Maybe this is just the way basketball is heading now.
How about the way the guards turn the ball over? When I used to play we weren’t allowed to catch the ball and turn our hand over every time we dribbled… That pisses me off. Let’s see that x-over move without palming the ball please!
Finally, I now have a pack of like-minded thinkers when it comes to realizing that the true problem is palming and not traveling. If I had known it was this easy, I wouldn’t keep arguing about this with my friends.
There are 3 main times when traveling occurs in it’s most egregious forms.
The catch and face on the perimeter. Watch a player receive the pass on the perimeter, especially while on the move. A dual foot shuffle to square up to the basket is a very common occurence. Specifically, watch Reggie Miller.
In the post, extablishing position. A player will catch the ball and then do a little hop/shuffle to establish better foot position prior to a power move. This was Patrick Ewing, but another decent one to watch is Anthony Mason.
The hop/jump drive. Usually this comes from the wing when someone enters the lane from the side and looks to swoop past a post for either a lay-up or fading jumper. It involves a hop and step and what is technically 3 oerall steps, but it never gets called. Kobe Bryant is a good one to watch here.
