[BenchWarmerParticipant]

Ok we have all been there in that one pickup game with your buddies and a few others where everything is going well then someone gets hotter than Thai food the next day. Naturally, as competitors, we see this as a challenge so what do we do? Well besides your one friends hermit younger brother, who is only there to make the teams even, most of us kick it up a notch, we take the challenge and say “let’s switch I will take him.”

So now you gotta slow this guy down. The first thing you do is check the ball to him with a nice bounce pass and bend your knees and stick with the fundamentals of defense you have learned since grade school. You bust your ass and don’t let him to the rim, even tip the ball from him a couple times but he gathers, shoots and it hits the front of the rim and goes in. You think to yourself ok he got that one but no way he is making the next, so when you check the ball you give him a pass with more mustard and harass him , but the result is the same. Now you are are a little annoyed, that bounce pass has now turned into a full on chest pass, letting him know you mean business. You look him in the eyes, but him being a natural Kobe Bryant has a heat check and drains a three in your face.
So here you are with all your buddies and this guy has got you looking like Luke Walton. What now? Now you channel your inner Bruce Bowen. You get right into him and steal the ball albeit a reach that will be a nocall in a pickup game, but you got the ball and that is all that matters. On defense make sure to hit him everytime he cuts, box out hard and kick the ball when he goes for a crossover. You hit him hard enough that you don’t hurt him but enough so he feels it; you make him fight for that bucket. On offense you take it hard at him like he is the one man standing between you and the endzone, making sure to draw solid contact, while looking like a mad man. You set hard screens on him. You pull his jersey a bit to slow him down if he beats you. You do everything and anything to make sure you win; you lose. You are pissed and want to hit someone or something. You fought, you lost.

The one thing you didn’t do to try and win was flop. You didn’t flop because this would not give you an advantage, but rather leave you laying on the floor as your opponent score the ball.

No amount of money is going to stop an NBA player from flopping. Every NBA player, outside of maybe Jr Smith, wants to win and will do what they need to to get that W, aslong as there is an advantage to falling on the floor there will be flopping .. if only I could fall down in a pickup game to stop the other player.

[TallmanNYCParticipant]

Very good point. I think the NBA makes a mistake every time they have rule that they have rule which we don’t use in pickup. The one exception being the shot clock. In pickup we all enforce a shot clock of some sort just be peer pressure. But no one flops in pickup to draw a charge. So it looks weird when we see guys do it in the NBA.

I think the NBA is going to crack down on it slowly but surely with post game film review. The fines are small now (especially for the starters and stars). But they can be increased. And they could be sized to reflect the players salary. Take a bigger bite out of Lebron’s paycheck than Patrick Beverly’s.

[TallmanNYCParticipant]

Very good point. I think the NBA makes a mistake every time they have rule that they have rule which we don’t use in pickup. The one exception being the shot clock. In pickup we all enforce a shot clock of some sort just be peer pressure. But no one flops in pickup to draw a charge. So it looks weird when we see guys do it in the NBA.

I think the NBA is going to crack down on it slowly but surely with post game film review. The fines are small now (especially for the starters and stars). But they can be increased. And they could be sized to reflect the players salary. Take a bigger bite out of Lebron’s paycheck than Patrick Beverly’s.

[Author]

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