On Gamesmanship

Posted by Rob Mahoney on February 28, 2010 under Commentary |

Of all the perspectives regarding Jason Kidd’s unorthodox technical foul draw on Mike Woodson that I’ve seen, I found Brett Pollakoff’s to be the most interesting. Namely, this passage:

If you’re in favor of Kidd forcing the refs to make a call there, then (whether you know it or not) you’re in favor of plays that guys like Anderson Varejao have become famous for: flopping. It’s the same thing — pretending you got fouled in hopes that the official will make a call is just what Kidd did here.

The problem I have is that neither play has anything to do with playing the game of basketball. In both instances, players are not scoring, passing, or doing their best to defend within the rules — they’re simply trying to work the system.

Thus, the argument isn’t necessarily about whether Kidd’s contact with Woodson was legal or not (though Pollakoff does hit on that topic as well), but what that type of contact means. What does it say about Jason Kidd that he would seek out that kind of situation? What does it say about the current state of the game that the referees, after much conferring and deliberation, were willing to assess Woodson a technical foul? And what does it say about those who supported and praised Kidd’s move (myself included) that we would advocate a play that’s only tangentially related to the game of basketball?

All interesting questions raised out of a particularly interesting sequence.

As for whether or not Kidd’s play is akin to flopping: I completely agree. Kidd intentionally sought out contact that was completely unnatural to the game of basketball, and unlike anything I’ve seen at any level. But before this conversation turns into a high and mighty judgment concerning that ever problematic F-word, think about all of the things that go on in a basketball game that are barely related to the game, if at all. There are dozens of plays made that aren’t “basketball plays,” but they’re perfectly legal within the way the rules are currently framed and they give one team or another a competitive advantage. Just a few:

  • Anytime an NBA player (and by NBA player, I pretty much mean Kobe Bryant or Kevin Durant) exploits an opponent’s hand-check to draw a completely unnatural shooting foul. The player is going out of their way to exaggerate incidental contact, and creating a situation where the ref is obligated to call a foul when they otherwise wouldn’t be.
  • Hack-a-Shaq. It’s one thing to incidentally foul Shaq while he’s fighting for position without the ball, but another entirely to purposely throw defensive possessions in favor of Shaq shooting free throws. Not exactly “doing their best to defend within the rules.”
  • Intentionally fouling to protect a three-point lead with the game on the line. Again, nothing basketball-related about it. Just playing the odds and protecting a lead, with little respect for the integrity of the game.
  • Anytime a coach instructs a team to drive to the basket so that they can get to the free throw line. Free throws are intended to be a penalty for overly aggressive defenders, not as a tool of the offense. James Naismith shakes his head at you for your blatant disregard for the game he once loved.
  • Television timeouts. Breaks in the game that can provide a real disadvantage for a team building momentum, or a clear advantage for a team that’s either low on timeouts or against the ropes. Much to do with the business of basketball, but nothing whatsoever to do with the game.
  • Taking a charge. Good basketball positioning is not about being in a spot to take contact and force a turnover. It’s about making an opponent’s shot attempt more difficult by denying lanes to the basket. Thus, anyone that steps outside the circle with the intent to take a charge is just milking the rules for all they’re worth at the sake of the explicit purpose of defensive fundamentals.
  • The enforcer mentality/fouling to prevent easy buckets. Already addressed above, but fouling should never be a mechanism through which the fouling team gains an advantage.

If you really broke down an NBA game to a micro level, I’m sure you could find dozens more examples of non-basketball plays that regularly take place in games. Some of them are frowned upon if not outright scorned, but others are accepted as a part of the game. There’s also an odd term applied to many of the aforementioned moves: strategy. Jason Kidd creating contact with Mike Woodson MUST be something insidious and detrimental to the game, but a coach calling for an intentional foul in a late game situation to protect a lead is just sound game management?

Group Kidd’s move with flopping if you must, but I don’t see a drastic difference between the motive and function of that particular play and countless other events that fly under the radar during a typical NBA game, much less a season. Whether Woodson was actually in bounds is one thing, but arguing that Kidd’s play is somehow damaging to the game is flat-out ridiculous. Working the system has become a part of the system, and though I’m all for protecting the sanctity of the game, I won’t for a second pretend that everything within it is a perfect manifestation of the spirit of the game.

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  • Brian D
    @finzent:

    Guys try to deceive the refs all the time in a number of ways. Is deception always cheating? If you really want to get technical, every time a coach/player complains about a call that was correct (generally hoping to get a makeup call on the other end), he's at least attempting to deceive, isn't he? And that happens maybe 35 times per game. Flopping is just another way for competitors to gain an advantage.

    Just to use a Mavs example, JJ is a gigantic flopper. It's practically his only defensive "skill". But it's an effective weapon for him because he's so small that it always looks believable when he goes flying across the floor.

    And I can certainly hate something without considering it cheating. I hate Kobe Bryant, I honestly think he's an evil human being, but I don't think he's a cheater (not in basketball anyway). :)
  • finzent
    First, I second everything that Aleks said.

    Second, @JasonS:

    As I understand it, Rob's point is that players try to draw a charge not only in order to prevent someone from driving to the basket, but at least as much in order to get the foul call and gain possession. In doing that, they are working the system in the sense that they are not only motivated by the clean, tidy basketball intention of "stopping the layup" but also by the rule-related intention of "getting the call". Therein lies the similarity to Kidd's play. That doesn't mean, of course, that trying to draw charges is somehow objectionable (on the contrary, it's a great, admirable play!). It does mean, though, that we probably should try to be a little more coherent in what we do and don't consider objectionable call-milking. If drawing charges (or getting the foul call in an unnatural shooting motion, etc.) isn't considered bad, then it's kind of hard to see what made Kidd's play so allegedly evil.

    @Brian D:

    "I’m a little surprised that so many people referred to flopping as “cheating”. I hate it as much as everyone else, but it’s hardly cheating. It’s another way to work the refs. It’s no more cheating than Kobe being in the ref’s ears for the entire 48 minutes of every game he plays."

    I think it IS cheating, and pretty obviously so. As I said in my first comment, flopping is essentially trying to deceive the refs into thinking something happened which really didn't happen at all. In that essential regard it is different from all the other ways of "working the system" Rob mentioned above. And, after all, not all "working the refs" involves lying to them (although that's often part of it, I guess). Also, if you don't think flopping is cheating I have a hard time seeing why you hate it so much, then.
  • Kirk Henderson
    How dare a competitor try to take advantage of a rule! How dare they try to gain an upper hand in a competition with winners and losers! How DARE they. This is obscene. I vow we simply ban competition completely, after all, when people compete, feelings get hurt and we can't have that.

    Good LORD, someone tell Brett to get off his high horse.
  • Brian D
    I'm a little surprised that so many people referred to flopping as "cheating". I hate it as much as everyone else, but it's hardly cheating. It's another way to work the refs. It's no more cheating than Kobe being in the ref's ears for the entire 48 minutes of every game he plays.

    Flopping is a risky play, there's always a chance the ref won't call anything at all and your man will have a wide open path.
  • Jerry Vinokurov
    It seems worthwhile to note that even Woodson himself doesn't appear to consider this an inappropriate play. In fact, it seems that the statement from Woodson is grudging praise of Kidd and personal regret rather than any accusations of bad sportsmanship. I have to take my hat off to him for that, because it's painful to be responsible for your team's loss that way.
  • JasonS
    When I read this, I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic. Drawing a charge is "gaming the system"? Are you serious? One of the most fundamental elements of defense is denying the offensive player the position. The offensive player is not allowed to simply push the defensive player out of the way (theoretically at least, see O'Neal, Shaq), nor is the offensive player allowed to simply throw themselves at the basket and expect defensive players to get out of the way.

    It's not gaming the system to prevent the offensive player from driving to the hoop, it's the very basis of all defense.

    Conversely, saying that driving to the hoop is gaming the system is also ridiculous. Why does the defensive player foul when the offensive player drives to the hoop? Because they are not good enough defensive players to establish position or block the shot cleanly. What you see is gaming is simply basic application of coaching - identifying a defensive deficiency and exploiting it. What is the offensive player supposed to do if Shaq rotates over onto Derrick Rose? Is Rose to just pull up and shoot a difficult jumper because driving to the hoop and exploiting his mismatch to draw a foul is some how "gaming the system"?

    What game, exactly, are you thinking that people should be playing? Horse? Folks standing around shooting jumpers?
  • This is an excellent post.

    What I don't get is the claim that Kidd's play is not a basketball play. These claims do not address the underlying issue - what in fact is basketball? The most straightforward answer is: Basketball is everything that happens within the defined rules for the game of basketball. In this sense, Kidd's play clearly was basketball.

    Pollakoff and co. seem so imply that there is some 'real' basketball within this 'ruled' basketball, which is vaguely described as 'scoring, passing, or doing their best to defend within the rules'. What about dribbling? What about moving without the ball on offense? What is this mysterious sphere of real basketball, and if it exists, why don't we play real basketball instead of this other game?

    No, basketball only exists because we have agreed on rules to play basketball, and everything within these rules is by definition basketball. Fouls, by the way, are outside the rules, and yet they are used as basketball strategy all the time, as Rob rightfully points out. Drawing a foul clearly is within the rules.

    It seems to me that 'real' basketball would be a game where the intentions of the players are ruled, not the actions. Kidd's intention clearly not basketball, but his play was. But this discrepancy between intentions and actions happens the moment you put people with brains in a rigid set of rules - they will 'work the system', which means: They will act as if they follow the rules, but their intention is to gain an advantage. Working the system happens everywhere, we do it all the time, and we cannot reasonably ask basketball players to be any different.

    Really, we need to understand that sports is not an ideal world played by robots, although that's what some people apparently want to see.
  • BunG
    nice read - love ur blog, but i have a feeling that lots of guys are missing one point:

    if i remember correctly, kidd pointed on woodsen to the refs, but they refused to call a t...so he forced them to do what they actually should have done by themselves in the first place...
    its really annoying to see coaches standing at the 3-point line and refs not calling t's. i mean they are coaches - not sixth men u can utilize as special defenders...
  • BJ
    Lumping Kidd's bump into Coach Woodson in with flopping is missing the point. Kidd did not violate the rules. Woodson did.
  • Brent Ewing
    Flopping is cheating, what Kidd did was brilliant!
  • great response to Mr. Polakoff's article. I hope that hes seen it?
  • Great article/blog. I do have to say that I don't think the flopping analogy is spot on - Woodson was out on the floor and out of the coach's box which is already a technical. In a sense all that Kidd did was draw attention to the fact.

    But still... if Kidd had avoided Woodson and Woodson had jumped off the court they "probably" would not have called it. Which is really more a comment on the subjective nature of the refereeing than it is a comment on the rules or flopping.
  • finzent
    Great points! I have to quibble with the premise in the quote, though, which you seem to endorse:

    "[What Kidd did and flopping are]the same thing — pretending you got fouled in hopes that the official will make a call is just what Kidd did here."

    That's just totally wrong. Kidd didn't pretend to be fouled. In fact, he didn't pretend anything at all. It was absolutely obvious that he purposely initiated contact with Woodson "in hopes that the official will make a call". But there was nothing covert or misleading to that play. Everything was out in the open. What's wrong about flopping is that you pretend something happened that really didn't happen at all. That's why flopping is considered cheating. But however objectionable you might find what Kidd did, he didn't pretend and he didn't try to mislead.

    So, if Pollakoff says that Kidd did wrong here because he "played the system" with a play that is not really basketball related, we have to be clear that that point has nothing to do with the things he says about flopping; I agree that he did "play the system" in some way. But flopping is something entirely different. It doesn't play the system, but deceive it.

    You are actually making great points to counter the "play the system unnaturally" accusation. Personally, I think the analogy of Kidd's play to the first point you mention (unnatural shooting motion to exploit handcheck) is nearly perfect (I commented over at HP to the same effect). Most of the other ones I didn't even think about.

    One last thing (for some reason, that topic really gets me going): For fear of being too Kidd-friendly in my reasoning I tried to imagine how I had reacted had the whole situation happened the other way round, and I have to say because of the sheer, well, unusualness of what happened and the fact that it might well have been a game-deciding play I think I would be drawn very much to the "play the system with non-basketball-play" objection. And it's true, one might find it somewhat deplorable that something like that is possible (I don't especially like some of the things on your list either, while I totally don't mind others). But in the end I don't think it really holds up.

    Isn't it great how just one play in an awesome game like this prompts people to get all basketball-philosophical..
  • Matt D.
    I don't see it as flopping at all. The tech on Woodson wasn't called because Kidd bumped him, it was because he was standing on the court. It should have been an automatic t the second a ref saw it. All Kidd did was bring it to their attention and force them to make the correct call. On the other hand, when a guy flops he's trying to draw a foul that isn't there.
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