
The sour science driving James Harden's vexing genius - kqr2
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26662160/the-sour-science-driving-james-harden-vexing-genius
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eBombzor
> Unless the league proactively addresses its rules and these whistle-chasing
> tactics, free throws stand to become the next version of corner 3s, with the
> league's smartest teams and players racing to find new ways to get them.

The NBA will probably crack down on this at some point considering how awful
it is to watch Houston's games sometimes.

I never knew that Harden's flopping was born from a strategic team effort.
Makes sense since you have the #1 and #2 floppers in the league on the same
team.

~~~
thrower123
They will need to do something, because it is not an entertaining product
right now. I'm beginning to pine for the physical grindfests of the early
2000s before the Malice-in-the-Palace, let alone 80s or 90s ball.

The Rockets are all in on analytics and routinely use their D-league team to
experiment with, frankly, cheesey min-maxing strategies.

~~~
Zarath
I genuinely can't understand the sentiment as I find the quality of the game
great. The biggest issues to me are "reviewing fouls" to see if they are
flagrant and fouling at the end of the game (especially with the 3 point so
prevalent in today's game, sometimes fouling for 2 free throws can be
beneficial). I wish the refs would generally take a more "let them play"
approach so I guess this would fix the issue of James Harden (who I dislike
for his style of game)

~~~
thrower123
With Tim Duncan retired, I can't think of a center or power forward with
enough moves to post up and score reliably. Guys will talk about spending
their whole offseason refining their post-up game, and that just means they
learned a drop-step...

The high pick-and-roll and four-out sets everyone runs now are pretty
monotonous.

The worst part is the style spills over to the way ordinary people play in
pickup and rec ball. Not many with the requisite talents at that level, but
boy do they try.

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blah-blahblah
``` That gap can't be explained solely through Harden's unprecedented prowess
on unassisted 3s and how much it frightens defenders. It's about antics, man
...

When we look at the league's most voluminous 3-point shooters over the past
three seasons, we see Harden's foul rate is more than twice as high as any of
the league's other top marksmen. ```

It's a little odd that Goldsberry recognizes that Harden's 3pt attempts might
be different than most 3pt attempts but then only compares his foul rates to
other people taking threes.

The style of shot (catch/shoot, unassisted, etc) is much more important for
fouls than the type (2pt/3pt). If Harden gets a lot more fouls when shooting
unassisted jumpers, including 3 pointers, than everyone else shooting
unassisted jump shots then maybe it's antics. Otherwise, comparing fouls on
Harden's 3 pointers to fouls on Khris Middleton's 3 pointers is like comparing
fouls on Rip Hamilton's 2 pointers to Shaq's 2 pointers.

~~~
as300
It's a limited comparison, I agree, but I think it still tells part of the
story. Curry shoots fewer threes but the same kind, and he can't buy the types
of calls Harden gets

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mr-ron
I've heard the argument on /r/nba that one key to James getting fouls is his
beard. He throws his head back, and his whole chin bounces up and makes it
super noticable to the refs.

A big part of drawing fouls is getting the ref to be looking at you and seeing
contact, and waving a big beard in the air gets a lot of attention

~~~
jaden
That's the first good reason I've heard for why he maintains such a long
beard. I wonder if it was a calculated decision.

~~~
hnbroseph
is "because he likes it" a "good reason"?

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licyeus
The Rockets allegedly track ref tendencies and feed that info to their players
(Harden included) so that they can better draw fouls. [1]

Can't say I fault a team for doing everything within the rules to win, but it
sure makes the games hard to watch (and I say that as a fan of both the league
and Harden + CP3).

1 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyuIEMdOi_E&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyuIEMdOi_E&feature=youtu.be&t=294)

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thelock85
The evolution of the game is based on hacking the rules. The step back
3-pointer is based on the fact that you can take two steps and glide to the
rim (layup or floater) or one step sideways, then back and jump shoot
(fadeaway) so why not take two steps back then jump forward (step back 3)
which you have to do anyway to create enough forward momentum on your shot to
avoid muscling the shot (Lebron-style step back 3) and getting tired
eventually (if you're not Lebron).

It's innovation at its finest, or better yet, iteration. Because anyone
watching the game knows that Steph Curry made the step back 3 a game changer
in today's NBA. Harden just perfected it.

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clairity
it's a tricky balancing act. i just watched two of his 3-point foul draws in
the game tonight (one deserved, the other not so much). a little bit of foul
shopping keeps the other team's defense honest, but harden does it so much
that it's frustrating. players really shouldn't be rewarded for constantly
baiting opponents into fouls.

fractional free throws to nullify the advantage would be odd, and not calling
fouls consistently would be even more maddening, so the solution isn't
straightforward.

with that said, harden really is fun to watch when he's not just fishing for
fouls.

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Causality1
In my opinion a good way to address this behavior is by crawling over game
footage from multiple cameras after the game itself. Anyone caught flopping
should be served with a multi-game suspension. Flopping is just as much
cheating as bribing a referee would be.

~~~
krupan
This is a great idea. Not only is flopping cheating, it's dangerous. Harden
was legitimately poked in the eye recently and when he went down everyone
ignored him, precisely because of his history of faking injury. Officials need
to know when an injury is real.

~~~
jbigelow76
If you get legitimately injured but it gets ignored because you fake it _that_
often (and your team suffers as a result), seems like a problem that would
sort itself out.

~~~
mrob
All pro athletes accept risk of injury as the price of being the best. If you
refuse to take risks then you'll be beaten by somebody who does. Even if the
expected value for the team as a whole is negative, it often still makes sense
to take the risk, because "best in the world" earns you so much more
(including earnings from adverts/speeches/movie deals/etc.) than 2nd best. The
rules are supposed to prevent this race to the bottom.

~~~
jbigelow76
Totally valid point, I'm arguing about the sense of urgency in the league
addressing it is all. If two jets of the same make and model crash in
relatively short window, then yes, ground every last one of them right then
and there and get every stakeholder involved; if a bunch of multi-millionaires
get some extra side eye because they _may_ have got nudged a bit extra, why
not wait and see if it self corrects based on TV ratings and ticket sales?

Edit, added: "based on TV ratings and ticket sales" to original response.

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m3kw9
I’d say the best play is the 4 point play back breakers

