Is the traveling rule actually a rule in the NBA?
For a long time now, a very basic and fundamental rule of general basketball knowledge is being “cheated” on, to put it like this. In a league where offense has all the rights in front of the defense, you can take 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 without being called for a traveling violation, and that is outrageous for people who like pure basketball, played by its’ rules made a very long time ago. For some of the lovers of the game of basketball and the NBA, it is kind of hard to put into perspective the fact that a player that proclaims that he is a superstar playing in the best league on the planet, can’t respect a simple rule that you learn when you go first time in your life to a basketball practice… Okay, we understand that they implemented the “gather step” in the past years, which kind of allows the player to take one more extra step after they catch the ball, but things just got uglier, season after season, and even if a lot of people around the league were mentioning it at some point, some of them even making excess fun of it, nothing changed in that way, and, ironically, they “introduced” the “double step-back” now, the latest “trend” in the league this season. I, personally, find it hard to believe that players such as LeBron James, who self-entitled him as the king and the greatest basketball player of all time, is very well-known for his blatant travels. James Harden, the principal favorite to win the MVP award this year, travels a lot as well, and many other players are breaking this rule. From my point of view, this is absolutely not right for the game of basketball. And I feel the need to mention it again, if you keep telling ourselves that this is the strongest league in the world, well, at least respect a fundamental rule. This goes very well for the referees, in special, because they are, in fact, the ones that let this thing happen so much that it got worse and worse and now everybody is using it as if it’s normal. Since a lot of buzzing went around the Americans and Europeans about the quality of basketball played in each of these two continents, the issue being debated as whether the European one is better in terms of its way to play it more structured by the games rules and overall tactics, we know one thing for sure, a travel is always a travel there, and that is how it should be; you can make highlight plays and flashy things without violating the rule, so no need to do that, NBA hall of famers…
Here you have some of the craziest “lowlights” that happened through time:
Andrei Dilean, info@brainbasketball.net
