I Think I Actually Became a Blogger So That One Day I Could Post This….

Tod Kelly

Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is  a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

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24 Responses

  1. Nob Akimoto says:

    That sports science video just seems like an excuse to play the dunk over and over and over. (Not a bad thing of course.)Report

  2. Patrick Cahalan says:

    2014.

     Report

  3. As a fan of a team eliminated from the tournament by Blake Griffin, I cannot approve.

    (But holy crap that’s amazing.)Report

  4. Fish says:

    At a minimum, at least Diop’s free-throw motion looked better than anything Shaq ever tossed up!Report

  5. BSK says:

    Personally, I thought this dunk was better.  I realize that Griffin’s took insane strength and body control… but LeBron jumped over a dude.  On an alleyoop!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlp-nJSbr0Report

  6. Michael Cain says:

    A terrifically athletic move, no question.  But it does bring up one of the things that annoys me about some of the NBA rules.  The defensive foul gets called, Blake gets continuation and the basket.  In the course of scoring, though, Blake commits a blatent offensive foul (hitting Perkins in the face as well as using Perkins to hold himself up).  Continuation is normally fine, but it ought not to get you a free pass on an offensive foul.

    And don’t even get me started on the variation in the way the refs interpret the rules depending on the game situation.  As any number of former players doing color have remarked on live mics over the years, “It’s the fourth quarter and you’re behind by 20 points; you know that the refs are going to let you get away with a lot of pushing and holding that would be a foul in a closer game, or earlier in the game.”Report

    • Patrick Cahalan in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Not an offensive foul, Perkins is inside the circle.

      No argument with the subjectivity of playcalling.Report

      • BSK in reply to Patrick Cahalan says:

        That rule only applies on a secondary, help defender.Report

        • Patrick Cahalan in reply to BSK says:

          He is a secondary defender on that play.

          Perkins is the center; Blake’s primary defender on that play was Ibaka, who was left in the dust very early on.Report

          • BSK in reply to Patrick Cahalan says:

            That does appear to be the case. I was clarifying what I find to be a more general misunderstanding, in that an offensive foul can never be called in the “restricted area”. It is also not an automatic defensive foul if contact is made. But, yes, Oerkins does indeed appear to be a help defender.Report

            • Michael Cain in reply to BSK says:

              The rule doesn’t say there can’t be an offensive foul in the restricted area; it says that there can’t be a charging foul down there.  There are still illegal things the offensive player can do, particularly with their off hand, and those fouls are regularly called when there’s no defensive foul preceding them.  Absent the blocking foul — correctly called without respect to the restricted area, as Perkins was in the air when the initial contact occurred — Griffin’s wildly swinging left arm/hand, hitting Perkins in the face first and then grabbing his shoulder, would be illegal in or out of the restricted area.

              Reread my comment.  I’m not saying that the call was improper under the current rules; I’m complaining that the rules allow, following a defensive foul, an offensive player to commit an otherwise illegal action and still get a basket.  I want the call to be defensive blocking, no basket because of illegal action, offensive player shoots two free throws.Report

              • BSK in reply to Michael Cain says:

                MC- I nderstand your point and mostly agree. My initial response was intended for Wardsmith’s post below this one. I put it in the wrong spot.

                WS said: “It isn’t a foul because they are inside the “half-circle” below the rim. That was put there just to keep defenders from blocking shooters. Perkins was inside the circle, therefore automatic blocking foul.”Report

              • I want the call to be defensive blocking, no basket because of illegal action, offensive player shoots two free throws.

                Oh, I see.  Yes, I agree, according to the literal reading of the rules, that’s the right call.

                I imagine that will occur… right about when they enforce traveling, palming the ball, body fouls on shots… actually, any foul that they call on a guard defending a guard but don’t call on a forward defending a forward… and offensive and defensive positioning fouls away from the ball.  Heck, let’s go back in time and take away Jordan’s iconic basket for his pushoff on Hornacek.  Or give Shaq the 3,291,432 additional foul shots he would have had.  Or… ah, never mind.

                The status quo makes the game a lot more subjective, when it comes to the refs, but it does make it more dynamic to watch, so there’s that upside.  I don’t mind the subjectivity so much, as long as they’re consistent during the game.  Call it a foul on both ends of the floor.  Don’t call it not a foul on one end and do call it on the other.Report

              • wardsmith in reply to Pat Cahalan says:

                Or give Shaq the 3,291,432 additional foul shots he would have had

                Wouldn’t matter, Shaq would have just missed them all (well, most of them).Report

              • Yes.  Which is why, even though I live outside Denver and am a Nuggets fan, I already know that no matter how well they play during the regular season, they will never go deep in the playoffs.  No team does unless they’ve got at least two players with a big-enough name to get those favorable calls in the last several minutes of the game.Report

    • wardsmith in reply to Michael Cain says:

      It isn’t a foul because they are inside the “half-circle” below the rim. That was put there just to keep defenders from blocking shooters. Perkins was inside the circle, therefore automatic blocking foul. In the old days it was a judgement call, but after a certain ref went to jail we should assume NBA refs don’t exercise good judgement. 😉Report

  7. Great highlights.

    I love how in both of them, the announcer’s saying something a second before the highlight that winds up seeming like foreshadowing <i>and</i> litotes. (Yeah, I passed eighth grade English, I’m not ashamed to throw that around). In the Griffin clip, the guy’s saying, “It’s a physical game…” just as he goes up. And in the second one, he’s helpfully setting the background: “DeSagana goes there having struggled, he’s got one point.” On cue: a miss by about 3 feet.Report

  8. Patrick Cahalan says:

    Now you got me looking up old plays.

    This one is one of my favorites, because he was so hot that night and I honestly think he was so caught up in his hot streak when his foot left the ground he was thinking, “I’m gonna dunk this… wait a second, what the hell was I thinking!!”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8GDRcO_-o0Report