The "Euro Pass"

[bdonovan]

https://youtu.be/bodKIFziqmM?si=D_HJSttz7tkF6NBz&t=43

Quite impressive. Giannis not only takes too many steps but also double dribbles. On one play. Play on !

[WhiteKyrie]

It’s been like this for him for a long time

[bdonovan]

It’s been like this for him for a long time

True. But it's not just him. Sabonis gets away with battering his defender with his elbows. Wembayana is already getting the Euro Pass with headbutting his defender.

With Giannis on this play, some of it is just veteran smarts. He likely knows the two refs are yards away and with a bad angle. Neither of the two refs standing near the 3 point line could see through all those players what was going on.

But it's not just star treatment. European players get a separate level of favorable treatment (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?514354-The-Handouts-to-European-Players-ends-NOW).

Then we have these same players who are getting away with everything claiming the NBA doesn't know how to play defense.

[WhiteKyrie]

True. But it's not just him. Sabonis gets away with battering his defender with his elbows. Wembayana is already getting the Euro Pass with headbutting his defender.

With Giannis on this play, some of it is just veteran smarts. He likely knows the two refs are yards away and with a bad angle. Neither of the two refs standing near the 3 point line could see through all those players what was going on.

But it's not just star treatment. European players get a separate level of favorable treatment (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?514354-The-Handouts-to-European-Players-ends-NOW).

Then we have these same players who are getting away with everything claiming the NBA doesn't know how to play defense.

The NBA doesn’t play defense and there is no physicality.

Also our guys get away with egregious carrying, palming and traveling now with the asinine manipulation of the rules to accommodate two and three steps backwards and side ways on jump shots. Not even layup attempts. Zero and gather steps. :oldlol:

It’s not even entertaining anymore, it’s actually annoying and a disgrace to the sport what guys are allowed to do.

Do you realize how many players in basketball now dribble up the court with their hand going beneath the ball and turning it over when doing a basic dribble? Top or side is legal. Literally flipping the hand over everytime.

[Kblaze8855]

The nba doesn’t have offensive rules. Only suggestions. Best practices. Defenders have rules. Offensive players are only highly recommended to follow loose guidelines



https://i.ibb.co/r6vRTRS/IMG-6591.gif

[highwhey]

True. But it's not just him. Sabonis gets away with battering his defender with his elbows. Wembayana is already getting the Euro Pass with headbutting his defender.

With Giannis on this play, some of it is just veteran smarts. He likely knows the two refs are yards away and with a bad angle. Neither of the two refs standing near the 3 point line could see through all those players what was going on.

But it's not just star treatment. European players get a separate level of favorable treatment (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?514354-The-Handouts-to-European-Players-ends-NOW).

Then we have these same players who are getting away with everything claiming the NBA doesn't know how to play defense.

gianna is such an egregious example of officials looking the other way. every one carries or ttravels, this dude does it 90% of tthe time on every offensive set though. there's a difference between the occasional travel on a play and an entitre play initiated and executed with a ttravel, carry and offensive foul.

[highwhey]

The nba doesn’t have offensive rules. Only suggestions. Best practices. Defenders have rules. Offensive players are only highly recommended to follow loose guidelines



https://i.ibb.co/r6vRTRS/IMG-6591.gif

there are offensive rules. certain players get more flexibility than others...then there is giabitch, she gets whatever she wants. if she wants to punch defenders in the face, the zebras would allow it.

[Gruppenführer]

It's very pretty and effective.

[Kblaze8855]

there are offensive rules. certain players get more flexibility than others...then there is giabitch, she gets whatever she wants. if she wants to punch defenders in the face, the zebras would allow it.


You just watched a guy you never heard of travel, carry, double dribble, then travel again but yea….only the stars have their own rules….


literally, every single person in the NBA plays illegal basketball by the standards of any other league. It’s only acknowledged in the stars. The refs turn a blind eye to all of it. You just don’t care when it’s some player who doesn’t get to you emotionally.

[tpols]

It's not a "euro pass"... it's a "giannis pass" where he's not only allowed to travel and double dribble to an absurd degree, but the mainstay of his game is to hit you and then flop like he got hit.

It's simply not honest basketball (or basketball at all for that matter). But most euros don't play like that. American players actually do that way more. Euros generally try to outshoot you.

[tpols]

You just watched a guy you never heard of travel, carry, double dribble, then travel again but yea….only the stars have their own rules….


literally, every single person in the NBA plays illegal basketball by the standards of any other league. It’s only acknowledged in the stars. The refs turn a blind eye to all of it. You just don’t care when it’s some player who doesn’t get to you emotionally.

Yea there's a difference between petty theft and Bernie madoff or Jordan Belfort. Everybody bends the rules.... not everybody outright breaks them on some exponential make me a star shit.

[Full Court]

I don't like it, but it's not like Giannis is the only one.

[ShawkFactory]

Yea there's a difference between petty theft and Bernie madoff or Jordan Belfort. Everybody bends the rules.... not everybody outright breaks them on some exponential make me a star shit.

You don't think those who serially practice petty theft wouldn't be Jordan Belfort if they were smart, talented, or lucky enough to?

[Kblaze8855]

Yea there's a difference between petty theft and Bernie madoff or Jordan Belfort. Everybody bends the rules.... not everybody outright breaks them on some exponential make me a star shit.


A crackhead stealing drillbits is a thief. If he could steal something more expensive and get away with it, he do it. A thief is a thief. A cheater is a cheater no matter if it’s carrying or traveling or that bullshit hand shadow double dribble shot fake they teach guards to do so often refs ignore it.

All of it is exactly as illegal. It’s supposed to be a turnover. But it isn’t.

It’s annoying when Harden arm hooks a guy for free throws or Giannis off arms or Draymond illegal screens his ass off or whoever else. It’s annoying to me Durant can carry on his backdown every time. The Kings sure didn’t like Stephs double dribble move(one of them actually acknowledged in the 2 minute report in the playoffs).

They’re all playing illegally you just get more or less upset in line with your pre existing bias.

As I showed there are nobody’s out here committing three or four violations chained together in the open court with every ref on the floor seeing it and not caring. That is what the NBA is. Accept it or turn off the tv.

A thief is a thief and a cheat is a cheat. Your girlfriend doesn’t get a pass because she only sucked somebody’s dick and didn’t **** him. It’s all the same thing. Once you’re down that path you don’t get to speak on anyone else.

[tpols]

You don't think those who serially practice petty theft wouldn't be Jordan Belfort if they were smart, talented, or lucky enough to?


Well yea.... they'd just be a smarter criminal because they were generally inept without breaking the rules of the game.

The point is a lot of great players didn't need to abuse the rules to that extent to produce at an extreme level. What rules does Jokic break? None. And he just murked the whole league.

[Kblaze8855]

Well yea.... they'd just be a smarter criminal because they were generally inept without breaking the rules of the game.

The point is a lot of great players didn't need to abuse the rules to that extent to produce at an extreme level. What rules does Jokic break? None. And he just murked the whole league.


The same ones everybody else breaks. He travels. He lifts and drags his pivot often as well. We just ignore the little foot shuffles from players most of the time. The foot work is where half the travels are. Almost the entire league travels coming out of the triple threat every time. As a more stationary player, he has a less of that, but there are plenty of examples of him traveling on drives and on awkward little spin moves and pivots that shouldn’t be possible. We just don’t notice because they result in a little soft hook or something that won’t get replayed 100 times.

if a robot were calling games, I’m not sure who would get the least calls but it would have to be a catch and shoot guy like Klay. If you dribble or do anything to set up your shot in the NBA, you’re going to take shortcuts because the ref don’t care.

and most off ball players are abusing illegal screens and push-off on top of it anyway.

if you have to break down anybody or go in the lane and create space, you’re going to do it illegally much of the time. We’re just talking about egregiousness not if it happens or not.

[tpols]

Cmon man... there's no way Jokic abuses double dribble or traveling rules that bad.

Like I said you are generalizing it all under the same umbrella when there's a difference between a municipal ordinance and a 1st degree felony.

You're comparing jaywalking to manslaughter and acting like they're the same thing because they both technically broke the rules.

[Kblaze8855]

I didn’t say anything about double dribbling. That’s almost exclusively a guard/wing move. A simulated double dribble is pretty much a live dribble pump fake and if you can shoot, it’s absolutely indefensible. It’s totally indefensible when people actually touch the ball with both hands as they often do. That isn’t generally what Jokic is doing. And I wouldn’t say what Jokic does is abusive. It’s just sloppiness brought on by not having the rules enforced. More a byproduct than intended.

But all of it is a byproduct. It’s a byproduct of a world without standards for these things. Do you think dude in that clip I posted doesn’t know or isn’t skilled enough not to commit at least three violations with nobody in front of him going in for a layup? Of course he can do it properly. He’s in the NBA. But the NBA doesn’t give a ****, so he doesn’t have to worry about it.

after you get away with something literally 900 times in a row, it stops being instinct to take the extra step. I’m just barely old enough to remember how awkward players used to look doing Spin moves and drives. It catches your eye now when you see Dr. J spin and do what looks like an extra unnecessary dribble before he goes up to dunk. It’s unnecessary today but it’s necessary to the actual rules of basketball. He does the extra little dribble so he can move both his feet as he turns to go up and dunk. Players now don’t bother. They just catch it and reposition themselves quickly without the extra dribble and go up with it. It’s illegal, but we’re only trained to look at it on certain kinds of plays.

I only notice because I was wet past for a big man back in the day, and my coaches would tell me I couldn’t do that. Jokic catches it and doesn’t bother establishing a pivot before a shuffle to get in position all the time. I don’t care, but he’s doing it.

He definitely plays closer to the rules than anybody in the NBA who consistently handles the ball facing up. Especially the tall guys who have the rules manipulated to allow them to be ball handlers without the skill that a few tall guys have to to it right(Lamar Odom, Tmac, and a few others). It’s hard not to carry with giant hands even for the skilled ball handlers but the relaxed rules, hands off defense, and spaced floors giving open lanes have made it too hard to stop these guys.

So it’s gonna happen 20-30 times a night. Paul George can dribble pretty legally, but he’s about as tall as it gets for players who can. If you move Shawn Kemp, Antoine Walker or maybe even a guy like Vin Baker to this era, they could get the ball and break people down off the dribble all day, because nobody cares if it’s legal or not.

Giannis and KD are the most carry prone players I’ve ever seen. Ben Simmons has a bit of that too. It’s just being tall and turned into a ball handler as a result of the era having lax standards.

after 10 years of this and it only getting worse, there are few options. I can come on here and complain about every single game I watch. I can get over it. Or I can stop watching the NBA.

[Kblaze8855]

We all see the travels and the carry calls get missed but the one that goes under the radar is the double dribble shot fake/hesi.


https://i.ibb.co/v43dBjb/IMG-6593.gif







It’s so pretty and just destroys good D because it’s one of two things….

Actually picking up your dribble…or simulating it. And people do it so often and so we’ll refs just give the offense wiggle room.

You simply cant guard a shooter like Steph when he can shot fake off the dribble with both hands








https://i.ibb.co/VxKkWsD/IMG-6594.gif


but refs see it and don’t know if he touched it or not without replay so he can do it as much as he wants. Has guys dancing. Kyrie too. Garland is a terror with it. The whole league has it in their bag. They know how to do it where the ref can’t see. It’s willful pre meditated cheating….the defense can do nothing about.

But it’s pretty so we just ask “Where you going!!?!?!” on Twitter and YouTube comments like the defender would be getting walked by as he glides away if he didn’t see dude pick up his dribble to shoot.


all of it is illegal. We just have a soft spot for illegal and beautiful. It’s like the sexual-harassment versus flirting meme. It’s sexual harassment when large clunky players do it but it’s flirting for a pretty little guard.



https://www.hostpic.org/images/2310190353400106.jpeg



So we hear about stiff arms…we heard about Shaq dislodging people. Didn’t hear so much about Grant Hill having to carry 45 times a game to protect the ball vs little guards.

Some violations generate excitement. We are real selective with the criticism. Always have been.

[Xiao Yao You]

We all see the travels and the carry calls get missed but the one that goes under the radar is the double dribble shot fake/hesi.


https://i.ibb.co/v43dBjb/IMG-6593.gif







It’s so pretty and just destroys good D because it’s one of two things….

Actually picking up your dribble…or simulating it. And people do it so often and so we’ll refs just give the offense wiggle room.

You simply cant guard a shooter like Steph when he can shot fake off the dribble with both hands








https://i.ibb.co/VxKkWsD/IMG-6594.gif


but refs see it and don’t know if he touched it or not without replay so he can do it as much as he wants. Has guys dancing. Kyrie too. Garland is a terror with it. The whole league has it in their bag. They know how to do it where the ref can’t see. It’s willful pre meditated cheating….the defense can do nothing about.

But it’s pretty so we just ask “Where you going!!?!?!” on Twitter and YouTube comments like the defender would be getting walked by as he glides away if he didn’t see dude pick up his dribble to shoot.


all of it is illegal. We just have a soft spot for illegal and beautiful. It’s like the sexual-harassment versus flirting meme. It’s sexual harassment when large clunky players do it but it’s flirting for a pretty little guard.



https://www.hostpic.org/images/2310190353400106.jpeg



So we hear about stiff arms…we heard about Shaq dislodging people. Didn’t hear so much about Grant Hill having to carry 45 times a game to protect the ball vs little guards.

Some violations generate excitement. We are real selective with the criticism. Always have been.

certainly not what I'd call pretty but I grew up playing a much different game

[highwhey]

You just watched a guy you never heard of travel, carry, double dribble, then travel again but yea….only the stars have their own rules….


literally, every single person in the NBA plays illegal basketball by the standards of any other league. It’s only acknowledged in the stars. The refs turn a blind eye to all of it. You just don’t care when it’s some player who doesn’t get to you emotionally.

and yet he can't build a superstar career or drop 20 a game on that, the moment he increases the illegal moves, the refs will strike down hard on him. cope however you like kblaze, you know i'm right. severity of measure is a thing when it comes to this. it's not as simple as you want it to be, it seems like in your head, you reason that everyone gets the benefit of the doubt but deep down you know gianna and a few others get away with highway robbery.

it's like saying everyone can break a law because people speed on the freeway everyday. except you know there is a massive difference between a speeding motorist and the idiots that caused the recession in 08.

[Kblaze8855]

I have nothing to cope with. Not like he gave my team 50 and snatched our best chance at a ring in 50 years. All he’s done his entire career is prove me right. The only possible criticism remaining is from people who literally were telling me he was bad at basketball who might be able to talk about the number of times he powered his team to a championship, which is obviously a massive shift of the goal posts.

The only difference from years ago is that he’s now done literally everything of note it is possible to do in the NBA so even the hypothetical arguments about his style putting a ceiling on a team have been crushed. There is nothing left to prove. You can never silence haters through success. If you could the most successful people wouldn’t have the most haters. All you can do is make them look like idiots as they complain about your greatness. You’re doing a pretty good job with that right now.

It’s move from “He can never….” to “Well he didn’t ____ as many times as ____” which is the kinda shift that makes a long time fan happy to see. And he completed the sport early. With plenty of time to tack on unnecessary gravy. Barring injury I’m gonna read you hating on indisputable greatness from him for a long time to come and I’ve made peace with that.


Perhaps you should make peace with the fact he came onto your turf laughing and effortlessly destroyed your entire world like Freiza




https://i.ibb.co/cg284Bk/IMG-6599.gif





And all the training in the world won’t bring it back.



You might have bright days to come. You have an owner about to spend half a billion a year for hired mercenaries to try to overwhelm chemistry with sheer talent.

It might work.

But it will never bring back your home planet.



And he didn’t even break a sweat. That man ordered a 30 piece chick fila nugget half sprite half lemonade after swallowing your city whole like a Komodo dragon with a deer



https://youtu.be/bvIqv4f-HQo?si=x1KnbDgzUNkycynt




Phoenix was a light snack. Now you’re spending untold money to buy back your dignity and try to forget your lost homeworld.


Cope with that. I’m doing fine over here. I made some deviled eggs a minute ago. Be a nice little snack on my way out the door in the morning.

[highwhey]

I have nothing to cope with. Not like he gave my team 50 and snatched our best chance at a ring in 50 years. All he’s done his entire career is prove me right. The only possible criticism remaining is from people who literally were telling me he was bad at basketball who might be able to talk about the number of times he powered his team to a championship, which is obviously a massive shift of the goal posts.

The only difference from years ago is that he’s now done literally everything of note it is possible to do in the NBA so even the hypothetical arguments about his style putting a ceiling on a team have been crushed. There is nothing left to prove. You can never silence haters through success. If you could the most successful people wouldn’t have the most haters. All you can do is make them look like idiots as they complain about your greatness. You’re doing a pretty good job with that right now.

It’s move from “He can never….” to “Well he didn’t ____ as many times as ____” which is the kinda shift that makes a long time fan happy to see. And he completed the sport early. With plenty of time to tack on unnecessary gravy. Barring injury I’m gonna read you hating on indisputable greatness from him for a long time to come and I’ve made peace with that.


Perhaps you should make peace with the fact he came onto your turf laughing and effortlessly destroyed your entire world like Freiza




https://i.ibb.co/cg284Bk/IMG-6599.gif





And all the training in the world won’t bring it back.



You might have bright days to come. You have an owner about to spend half a billion a year for hired mercenaries to try to overwhelm chemistry with sheer talent.

It might work.

But it will never bring back your home planet.



And he didn’t even break a sweat. That man ordered a 30 piece chick fila nugget half sprite half lemonade after swallowing your city whole like a Komodo dragon with a deer



https://youtu.be/bvIqv4f-HQo?si=x1KnbDgzUNkycynt




Phoenix was a light snack. Now you’re spending untold money to buy back your dignity and try to forget your lost homeworld.


Cope with that. I’m doing fine over here. I made some deviled eggs a minute ago. Be a nice little snack on my way out the door in the morning.

doesn't bother me as much as you think it does. it's more of an embarrassment to watch as a basketball fan in general. narratives...league sanctioning non-basketball moves. then we have idiot consumers such as yourself that think its ok and acceptable. idk how you fina that type of basketball palatable. it's embarrassing, and i would never approve of it myself. i would sooner shut off the television than watch this horrendous product. i've shut off the tv midway through suns games when they were so bad they couldn't score or defend. it doesn't deserve my attention or time, i have better things to do.

[highwhey]

maybe i just matured and stop caring for the game as it transitions to consumer-oriented entertainment. same for the newly announced Dragonball series, what a stupid idea...they're turning goku and vegeta into kids. i ain't watching that shit and i love dbz. there's a line for me with everything, a threshold. gianna fumbling into the paint like a bowling ball while the ref nervously watches to see if the ball will go into the hoop is my threshold.

[bdonovan]

The NBA doesn’t play defense and there is no physicality.

Also our guys get away with egregious carrying, palming and traveling now with the asinine manipulation of the rules to accommodate two and three steps backwards and side ways on jump shots. Not even layup attempts. Zero and gather steps. :oldlol:

It’s not even entertaining anymore, it’s actually annoying and a disgrace to the sport what guys are allowed to do.

Do you realize how many players in basketball now dribble up the court with their hand going beneath the ball and turning it over when doing a basic dribble? Top or side is legal. Literally flipping the hand over everytime.

The simplest way to invalidate the argument that you're making is to look at the results of NBA players in the Olympics. The American NBA players dominate foreign nations and use defense to keep their team score at about 80 points. Meanwhile they score in the 100 point range. One of the reasons the US team is so dominant.

https://www.usab.com/teams/5x5-mens-olympics/schedules

So yes, NBA players excel at defense. As to your points on the refs allowing carrying, palming and traveling- that I agree with. While that complicates the efforts of the defense, alone does not negate the fact that NBA players are skilled and effective at defense.

In a way we're agreeing. To the extent the refs keep letting offensive players get away with murder, it will eventually erode the ability to play defense. Hence the need to end the Euro Pass.

[bdonovan]

It's not a "euro pass"... it's a "giannis pass" where he's not only allowed to travel and double dribble to an absurd degree, but the mainstay of his game is to hit you and then flop like he got hit.

It's simply not honest basketball (or basketball at all for that matter). But most euros don't play like that. American players actually do that way more. Euros generally try to outshoot you.

It is absolutely a EURO pass. I posted a video last week of Wembayana headbutting his defender to the ground and scoring. The point is while everyone in the NBA occasionally gets away with a foul because refs are human, European players systematically break the rules and are given a pass. As I pointed out earlier, Giannis' standard move to the basket entails throwing his elbows at the head-level of defenders. That's not a natural move. It's one thing to get away with a foul one time versus incorporating offensive fouls into your standard moves to the basket and getting away with it.

Just as commonly Sabonis on the Kings begins his post move by throwing his elbow after cocking it into the defenders chest. Same principle: incorporating offensive fouls into one's most common moves to the basket and it not being called a foul.

If your most common offensive move incorporates an offensive foul, you should be hearing the whistle so frequently, you change your game. But it doesn't happen. Because European immigrants receive favorable treatment by the NBA. Why that is, is a different story. Perhaps it's good for business in making the NBA popular in Europe and for revenue. But on the standard of fairness, it needs to end.

[Overdrive]

https://youtu.be/bodKIFziqmM?si=D_HJSttz7tkF6NBz&t=43

Quite impressive. Giannis not only takes too many steps but also double dribbles. On one play. Play on !

Not saying the NBA isn't very loose on their rules, but without an other angle that's useless. He could've been stripped by AD.

[bdonovan]

Not saying the NBA isn't very loose on their rules, but without an other angle that's useless. He could've been stripped by AD.

Either way, he took 3 steps before the double-dribble/ball-strip.

[bdonovan]

It is absolutely a EURO pass. I posted a video last week of Wembayana headbutting his defender to the ground and scoring. The point is while everyone in the NBA occasionally gets away with a foul because refs are human, European players systematically break the rules and are given a pass. As I pointed out earlier, Giannis' standard move to the basket entails throwing his elbows at the head-level of defenders. That's not a natural move. It's one thing to get away with a foul one time versus incorporating offensive fouls into your standard moves to the basket and getting away with it.

Just as commonly Sabonis on the Kings begins his post move by throwing his elbow after cocking it into the defenders chest. Same principle: incorporating offensive fouls into one's most common moves to the basket and it not being called a foul.

If your most common offensive move incorporates an offensive foul, you should be hearing the whistle so frequently, you change your game. But it doesn't happen. Because European immigrants receive favorable treatment by the NBA. Why that is, is a different story. Perhaps it's good for business in making the NBA popular in Europe and for revenue. But on the standard of fairness, it needs to end.

Where we're stuck is the over-simplification response to what I'm saying is "wull, everyone gets away with something!". Sadly, the times players get away with violations and not called for it are not tracked statistically. So it's going to be a challenge to prove the Euro Pass quantitatively. The discussion depends on people being intellectually honest and actually watching basketball games- I realize that's a big ask. Empirically, it's staggeringly obvious that European players get away with more; the most problematic of which I posted above is incorporating offensive fouls into their primary offensive moves.

[JohnMax]

https://i.ibb.co/cg284Bk/IMG-6599.gif

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/70/1c/42/701c42357ecd9c8596c2499dade70d13.jpg

[Overdrive]

Either way, he took 3 steps before the double-dribble/ball-strip.

I think the NBA stopped counting steps ca 2008.