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This detailed film breakdown & scouting report explores the impact the “gather step” rule has had on basketball, and how it’s contributed to less aerial, vertical scoring by providing more horizontal, ground-bound solutions for NBA players.

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Stats courtesy:
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Footage in this video is owned by the NBA and its partners. It is intended for critique and education.

Music by csus (instrumental)

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33 Comments

  1. The Gather just needs to go at this point purely because it added a layer of subjectiveness to dribbling. Look under any basketball video and you will see people debating travels and if that isn't a clear indication of a poorly worded rule idk what is.

  2. I hate the gather step. I hate the carries.

    Plus there’s all this space.

    You kids in here are telling me MJ wouldn’t average 40?

  3. I grew up on 90s basketball. I keep trying to watch today's NBA but I always end up turning it off. Watching teams just come down and shoot 3s is not entertaining to me. I actually prefer women's basketball and NCAA because they have more variety in their gameplay.

  4. Ive been doing the Shai shoulder bump my whole life (im 32.) I play street where its kind of a staple but ive always been aware that itd be an offensive foul in regulation. Feels like as long as youre not egregious with it its become legal. The 3 step low gather is atrocious however and everyone would call you a traveler in a pickup game, really hope they address that. The eurostep is one of my favorite moves however, both as a player and a viewer.

  5. Have also lost track of how many times, we've seen a defender standing just outside that arc line in the paint, the one indicating a charge. The dude w/ the ball runs over the stationary defender, no more charge calls – they have literally given ALL the advantage to the offense, WTF is a DPOY worth now (w/ rules like these), a paper weight??? & it's a completely unsolved mystery why viewership is down. Hilarious. Pride. Ego. Arrogance & Stupidity. When the players (HoF) that made the NBA as popular as it is today, say it's trash – & you still don't fix it – you get what you get.

  6. There's never been even one season in NBA history where every team in the league averaged over 100 ppg. Yet, right now we're almost a month into this season and not only is every team averaging over 100 ppg, they're averaging over 108 ppg. That's ridiculous. They've made it WAY too easy to score.

  7. The gather step, traveling whatever you want to call it is absolutely garbage and ruining the game, full stop. Sorry not sorry

  8. Finally someone is saying it! And I don't even think the solution has to be complicated. Just tell refs to call more travels when something FEELS like too many steps. Then the low gathers and running-with-the-ball plays will decrease. We don't have to do away with the gather step, just the abuse of it.

  9. The first two clips i saw were of players fully cupping the ball in their dribble…This type of thing is why the current NBA lacks.

  10. Call the carries, call the travels. If you have the best players in the world, make them play according to the rules.

  11. This is good stuff. The NBA is a league that has and will make changes for both the spirit and aesthetic of the game. I will not be suprised if they pull back on this some in the upcoming years.

  12. Please keep yelling at this particular cloud. I love the pace and space era but can't stand watching players walk with the ball.

  13. I was just reading an article about how many injuries stars are having this season compared to the previous ones. They talked a little bit about the pace of the game and how much strain the current rhythm and amount of possessions puts on players. After seeing this video, I started wondering how much this type of horizontal movements is affecting the players' bodies. It seems to me that the knees and ankles are being strained much more with all this twisting and sudden breaking which could be leading to a lot of the ACL and Achilles injuries we have seen in the past few seasons.

  14. I hate watching the NBA now. They say there are rules when their are no rules. Rules are left up to the refs discretion

  15. Worth mentioning that because of the 3 pt era, players overall are shorter and faster too which leads to more ease of scoring with this style.

  16. I think this shift to horizontal play may be whats behind the increase in injuries, particularly calf/achilles

  17. really, it is just the low gather travel and the carry before gather that if the refs cleaned up would go a long way to making me happy.

    There was a travel called on Mobley the other day that was just a basic pivot move which was one of the few wrong travel calls on a legal play I have seen in awhile. Figures it wasn't even on anything related to a gather.

  18. Because teams learned how to play efficient offense with the 3pt line finally. The skill level and athleticism for the average player has went up tremendously now as well. Old heads lie to themselves when they try to pretend otherwise, they played dumb offensive schemes that were as lazy as they were boring.

  19. To be clear, when they were attacking vertically instead of horizontally the same kind of people complaining now were complaining then too lol

  20. Great video but can we dispell something this video seems to present? The type of highlight reel plays spoken about in this video being more exciting weren't happening every game, Kobe wasn't crossing over and dunking on somebody every night even in his younger days or prime. These plays still happen as frequently, the players have just learned to adapt when that sort of finish isn't available. It's also allowed alot of less athletic guys with more skill and touch to shine. That's part of why offenses score so much more and more efficiently (in conjunction with the fact that NBA teams finally figured out an open OR lightly contested 3 is better than any contested 2 on the floor including a layup by any player that isn't all star CALIBER.) Old people complained about how the game was played in the 70s, 80s, 90s and will forever. That's just how it is, it doesn't mean their criticism isn't valid or that their vision of how the game should be played is better. The only fact is that offensive schemes today regardless of how the game is officiated are more efficient than ever before. Doesn't mean you have to enjoy how the game is played though.

  21. NBA refs in general are suspect, gambling is another layer of the loss of integrity in the game! With relaxed travelling and palming and constant defensive fouls the whole product goes down a notch in my mind. It's a highlight based jump shooting contest, the athletes are superior but the product has lost a lot

  22. So traveling doesn't exist and that's a good thing?! It's a business and a product and skill is being deminished. The truth is officiating is a joke and so is the league and is why it's losing popularity.

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