postscript to Dwyanu Wadibili
In the latest in its series of defending the indefensible. Slate magazine now tries to defend flopping itself. The premise seems to be that, without a little over-dramatization of fowls, we’d be stuck in the doldrums of the NBA or NHL circa 1996. But the NBA is a good example of why this is a huge over-simplification. The NBA (and, more recently, the NHL) made the game more exciting to watch by enforcing the penalties on the books and creating new rules to discourage defensive interference, not by letting offensive players invent their own fouls.
The main problem with diving is not that it’s dishonest, weaselly behavior, although it is. The main issue is that it completely disrupts the rhythm of play if players collapse when they have control of the ball and aren’t touched hard enough to actually bring them down. The author basically admits this by saying, “There is nothing more depressing than a player who goes to the ground when he might have scored.” But he gets around this by sort of redefining the term “diving,” confining himself to defending flops where there is legitimate contact sufficient to bring a player down but the ref won’t call a foul unless the foulee rolls around on the ground in apparent agony. I have nothing to say about those instances, except to say that if the officiating is that bad, maybe FIFA should think about, I don’t know, assigning more than one ref per game. Hey, it’s a big field, after all. So maybe FIFA and the NBA should actually enforce the rules they already have and stick to them, instead of letting players on the field decide when they want to be fouled. Maybe they should throw in a tough rule against diving too, like in the NHL. Then they’d have the best of both worlds, and as a side benefit, basketball stars might stop seeming so damn manufactured.
p.s. I admit that the disrupts-play argument applies less to the NBA, where the good floppers like Wade and Ginobili usually get “fouled” somewhere in the process of shooting and follow through their shots, but it still slows the game down a bit, and if less-skilled players start doing this I could see whole games degenerating into a succession of bricks and foul shots. Plus, it makes me hate whoever is doing it. The author also tries to criticize this visceral dislike of that sort of behavior by implying that everyone sharing this feeling is a chauvinistic racist, which is one of the most infuriating (and, unfortunately, increasingly popular) ad hominem argument strategies out there. And anyway, hockey players are sort of the model of stoic toughness, and most of them (until recently, anyway) are French Canadians, for God’s sake. If this were really just a construction of American nationalism, do you really think they would be the ones fit into that mould?
June 28th, 2006 at 3:24 am
Well, thank god there’s someone out there who isn’t afraid to speak out against the outrageous racism that the Iberians, Italians and Dutch suffer from. If Dr. King were still alive, he would no doubt march in solidarity with them.
July 3rd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I caught extended highlights of games 1-5 of the finals on British terrestial tv the other night, and it got me thinking about the nature of American commentary. British broadcasters pick out highlights of every controversial call in every major sport and discuss them as neutral fans would. They don’t pull any punches when it comes to criticising officiating. The only reason I could think for their American counterparts at ABC to do otherwise is that they believe criticism of the officials will ultimately lead to a decline in support for the league and a decline in their profits. But wouldn’t it make more sense if the commentators approached the game from an objective standpoint? That way fans who notice these things would feel like their concerns were being heard and players would be more likely to change their ways. On a sidenote, having been away from the country for 7 years, I was unprepared for the irritating sycophantic nature of their banter.
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:26 pm
On a sidenote, having been away from the country for 7 years, I was unprepared for the irritating sycophantic nature of their banter.
Yeah, well, just try watching a Congressional debate on CSPAN.
July 4th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
I suspect the much more important consideration is that ABC/ESPN doesn’t want to piss off the league and jeopardize their ability to broadcast games. The fear being, presumably, that if they criticized the refs too much, the NBA would sell broadcast rights to NBC or something.
Of course, the alternative explanation is that the commentators are idiots, which is a possibility that shouldn’t be discounted too lightly.