Alex Speers

I hate that I can match the name Mark Davis to a face.

I don't want to be able to do that.

I don't want to say to myself during a game, oh, Finchie's big mad at Zach Zarba.

I don't want to say those words in my head.

I've complained about how much of the NBA discussion comes back to foul calls because I think it's the least interesting part of the game, and it's usually the least interesting conversations.

But I have to admit at this point it's a problem because when Adam Silver called the NBA a highlight sport,

He wasn't wrong in that a lot of the discussion about the league centers around highlights, around specific plays.

And when a non-insignificant number of those highlights, the plays that are stimulating discussion among your fans, are foul calls, it is a problem.

And I don't think that's going away.

And this week...

I'm going to briefly flip this from a bad to a good.

We got what I think is the best summation of the current issues with officiating in the form of a YouTube video from Ben Taylor at Thinking Basketball.

Ben spent 20 minutes detailing some of the biggest areas of the game that are currently being abused by offenses, things like moving screens, the gather step, use of the off-arm, and then just running over defenders, everyone becoming Giannis.

I thought his use of highlights from NBA games in the 2010s

showing how different the game is called from not that long ago was really good because he's got so many clips from the early Thunder years of Katie and Russ getting called for things that would barely register for a ref today.

And I thought that comparison was a really helpful visual to explain how much things have changed in such a short time span, despite the rules not changing at all.

It's not like he's showing clips of the Jordan rules in the early 90s or something.

I'm watching Russell Westbrook getting called for barely using his off-arm on a play.

Again, I hate talking about this stuff because it's become such a huge part of the conversation.

It seems like you don't, but just keep going.