Letem Play !!

So w 34 seconds left down by 7, Chris Paul is inbounding the ball for the Phoenix Suns.

He throws a nice lob pass to teammate Devin Booker at the top of the key. Booker catches the ball, pump fakes, and then anticipating contact from Pelicans defender Gordon Hayward, jumps and leans in.

Contact was made, the ball long bounces off the rim, and goes in.

Seen this kind of play 100 times, being a Knicks fan and hating Reggie Miller for making this dumb ass play a legit basketball move.

Then they show the replay.

Booker actually pushed Hayward off to create space, to catch the inbounds pass.

Then during his Reggie Miller impersonation, actually lex luger elbows the shit out of Hayward.

Wtf?! Should that have been an offensive foul?

Maybe. I'm not sure what the current rules are. I've googled it and I'm still confused.

The problem I have though, is offensive players having so much leeway to be physical while players on defense having to constantly make sure they barely make contact with the ball handler all game long.

17 years ago there was a rule change https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sportskeeda.com/amp/basketball/how-hand-checking-foul-changed-the-nba-forever.

That same summer Steve Nash, left the Dallas Mavericks and signed w the Suns ironically. During his 1st two seasons with the Suns and the rule being in place, Nash goes on to win 2 MVP awards and being the focal point of the Suns championship contender status.

Steph Curry, real life son of Dell Curry and is also a basketball son of Nash and used that "DNA" to become the new scoring point guard champion, also a 3-time NBA champion and has multiple MVPs like his basketball dad (the metaphorical one, be offended if you wish)

The thing is, YES Curry is one of the most exciting players ever.

But the zone defenses and hand check rule changes, minimalized the defense' ability to play physically as I've bitched about through out my speel.

Can we at least try to modify the rules back a little???

The NFL is America's greatest sport. It was destined to be on America's true real past time, the TV screen.

The main camera angle during an NFL game, starts off focused on the defensive and offensive lines, and then usually on the quarterback.

Some of the most exciting plays are made downfield which are hugely a result of the suspense built on the camera angle. Even when new camera angles are tried, they actually chip away at the aspect of the game. (This ain't madden dawg)

The dead ball 90s era NBA was similar in the sense of this build up. Personally I hated the bad boy Pistons replica style ball thru out the league at that time. (Copy cat league, am I right?) But what couldn't be denied were the easy to follow plays that were being set up by these offenses, due to defenses having some more liberty.

I don't miss the 90s' "69-68" total scoring games in the dead ball era. I do miss the fact that people who play a sport at the highest level are not allowed to utilize an advantage like strength in a game.

Did the league come up w/ the previous stated rules as well as zone defense, to eliminate the low tv rating Centers? Of course.

Are there way more talented players nowadays then ever before? Yup!

Basketball is not as popular as football. Football has had majorly impactful rule changes as well (Enter hate on Tom Brady's last 6 super bowl appearances here https://youtu.be/a4IItTy8V4M). The NFL is still being physical enough to sit on the mantle of America's Past time.