The NBA is letting offenses do whatever they want

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Why are offenses more efficient than ever? This video is about the 2026 NBA officiating style, and how offenses are pushing the boundaries of the rules further than ever, handicapping defenses in the process. Is a balance between offensive and defensive rules even important?

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Beautiful assist on A DRIVE. OFFENSIVE FOUL. Offensive foul. >> Offensive foul. You think Stephen Curry spllayed out on the pavement after that hit and run is an offensive foul? >> It appears that Thompson went into the path of the defender. >> Where was all of that contact created? And to me, it’s created right there with that thrust of his left shoulder and a little bit of a push off also with his forearm. Phew. I was worried there. We didn’t all agree that that was an offensive Wait, wait, wait. What? What’s this? >> The call on the floor for is going to be overturned to a blocking foul as Curry did not establish a legal guard position. >> Ah, the legal guarding position. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? What actually is a legal guarding position? Why are offensive fouls way down? Well, offenses are more efficient than ever. Does traveling exist anymore? I need to get to the bottom of this because right now it appears that defenses are basically no longer allowed to play defense. Okay, it is exactly uh 6:44 and I’ve watched about half of the Pistons game against the Wizards and I’m freaking out because I don’t think there’s any rules anymore. I’m going to investigate and I’m going to get to the bottom of this and if you don’t hear from me, I spontaneously combusted. Okay, I’m breaking down some Pistons film here. And look at this screen. He’s moving, but also turns his shoulder and drives through the defender like a football player. Now, when the Wizards bring the ball up the court, look at Marvin Bagley block for the running back. Yet on page 66 of the rule book, it says ahem to screen a moving opponent, the player must stop soon enough to permit his opponent the opportunity to avoid contact. Okay, I’m feeling a bit crazy, but surely these are just one-time examples of what what was that? Kate Cunningham just shoves his man backwards because why not? Then spins into a hip check to screen and what the hell is going on here? This was a couple minutes later and some of these players would make good offensive linemen in the NFL. I mean, you’re supposed to stop and act as a wall for a defender to run through, not rush them like a title wave. I don’t know what’s happening. Offenses have started this season again at a record- setting pace. And while offensive tactics continue to evolve, defenses continue to be handcuffed. I don’t know if they’re allowed to play defense in today’s NBA. >> Dribbling rules have relaxed over the years. We’ve discussed that in detail before, most recently with a deep dive on the gather step. But this season in particular, there’s been a shift in a few key areas where the offense is dictating physicality across the court. Yet, there are more defensive fouls than in nearly two decades. We’re talking about moving screens and primarily initiating contact with the ball like Amen Thompson, but being rewarded with free throws despite literally injuring Steph Curry because he Hulk smashed him so hard. Before we get to that, traveling has become an issue even beyond the gather step concepts we recently discussed. This is like six steps from Giannis after he gathers. Remember, to start a dribble, you only get one step, not two. Which is a big deal for shooters or players not having to worry about dribbling. You know that whole thing. That’s one, two, three, four steps before shooting. And anytime you see a player hopping around like crazy like this, it’s probably illegal because you aren’t allowed to jump and land on the same foot. And much more importantly, you are not allowed to drag your feet around the court. So, this looks like a gather, then one and two legal steps, but look closely. His left foot is step one, then his right foot taps, then his left foot slides because that’s the only way to take these crazy long strides and stay upright. And yeah, you can establish a pivot foot and then drag the other foot around, but you can’t drag the second foot and that’s I guess an infinite step travel. This happens all the time, but it’s almost always happening on these long steps because, you know, physics. So, even this infamous Grayson Allen moonwalk, if we pretended that he actually gathered the ball with his left foot down on the three-point line, that would make his right foot his first step. He’s allowed to then pivot around off that foot and then release the ball on his second step before that right leg contacts the ground again. The only problem is to make the move he had to pick up that right pivot foot. Then he had to drag the back foot to support that crazy long stride which makes the whole thing like a sixstep travel. Jordan Cornette nearly died inside counting this step. Oh my god. >> Oh my god is right. So yeah, dribbling and carrying rules are looser than ever. But gather steps aside, there is a freakish amount of traveling supporting these new age dance steps, and it is almost never ever called. Speaking of traveling, my all-time favorite holiday film, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a movie about traveling and maybe basketball. Larry Bird doesn’t do as much ball handling in one night as you do in an hour. Are you trying to start a fight? And it takes a team of great actors, writers, costume designers, and more to create such comedic brilliance. Which is why you need to hire the right people to build a great team in entertainment or basketball or any other field. And the best way to do it is with Zip Recruiter, which you can try for free right now at ziprecruiter.com/great. Zip Recruiter’s matching technology quickly finds you top talent and with their advanced resumeé database instantly unlocks top candidates contact information. Four to five employers who post on Zipcruiter get a quality candidate within just one day. So go to ziprecruiter.com/great. Again, that’s zipcruiter.com/great and try it out for free. That’s also how you support Thinking Basketball in these chaotic times. Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire. This is the tip of the iceberg for the abuse defenses have taken this season. Offensive players are crashing into defenders and it’s either a no call or a defensive foul. >> So Derek, how about the physicality? I mean, he’s knocking Mark Williams at 71240, a good 2T back. >> I mean, 2 feet is cool, but what about lowering the boom and moving a 250lb defender a good 5t through the air? And to be clear, this defender is just hanging out in the path of the ball handler. His left foot is planted in front of him, but Norm Powell just smashes him out of the way, which is almost as fun as the human battering ram himself coming downhill and sending DeAndre Aon 7 ft through the air. And what the league is saying here is that Aton isn’t perfectly still, so it’s a defensive foul. But Aton’s right leg looks planted. And more importantly, the space to claim is under Aton’s arm. But Giannis drops his shoulder back into where Aton was standing, which is why he flies 7 ft across the court. The contact point of these Hulk smashes is what makes them so antithetical to basketball history. Yes, the defender is moving, but defenders were allowed to move. A more classic defensive foul in this situation is this kind of block charge call where the dribbler is attacking the open space and the defender moves into him before claiming that space. Notice both feet are off the ground here, moving into the ball handler. Although even here, the dribbler swerves back into him a bit, which is what’s happening on these plays. A swerving into the defender. In other words, offensive players no longer need to win any space. >> He ran over him like a tractor trailer. >> He’s still moving, huh? >> They can just smash into moving defenders. So, imagine this at midcourt. the offensive players trying to win this space here, but instead just swerves off and smashes the defender. And this one was actually called an offensive foul, perhaps because the defender fell down, whereas most defenders have been trained to take the hit and stay upright. Now, as a reminder, about 10 to 15 years ago, any kind of offensive plow job was an offensive foul where if you got a shoulder in the middle of the chest, it was a charge. Actually, any contact initiated by the offense like that was often called offensive. Kevin Durant gets the defender moving, but he also drops a shoulder, and that was illegal for like the entire history of basketball. Hitting the defender in the middle of the body, even when he was sliding, was pretty much universally agreed upon to be an offensive foul. Basically, you had to go around the defense instead of going through them. The idea of just smashing someone back with a shoulder was like an automatic no-brainer offensive foul, just like swerving into a defender was always illegal. But now it’s normal for offensive players to put a bullseye on the defender’s chest and veer into them. Instead of driving toward the basket here, Tyrese Maxi swerves into John Collins and sends him flying like 5 ft. And of course, that’s free throws for Maxi this season. Falling down as the defender definitely helped. Again, players aren’t flopping back on most of these hits anymore. But it was never required. Any hit to the middle of a defender that dislodged them was likely an offensive foul because, and I know this is crazy talk, if you hit a defender in the chest, you did not beat the defender. I have no idea why this changed, but you don’t actually have to get around anyone anymore. You just plow them out of the way. And notice James Harden using that off arm like a club against Maxi here. And it’s a foul on Maxi. And this is another common tactic dribblers use, just clubbing defenders with their off arm or sticking their non-dribbling arm in front of them like a shield to discard defenders as needed. We looked at this in a recent video for Thinking Basketball members where Austin Reeves was just armarring his defender and it’s become a more common tactic around the league to protect the dribble. >> OG with the off arm trying to fight off physical defense right there. You see that right push off. >> What does that tell you about the off hand all year? It’s been going on all year. >> Again, these were offensive fouls until very, very recently. Any offarm activity was a fairly vanilla call. >> Good spacing by the Celtics. And that is an offensive foul. Little elbow. >> Just minor little elbows meant an offensive foul because you were not supposed to use your off arm as a club, shield, weapon, whatever. There’s barely any contact here, but a discard was a foul. And sure, defensive flopping certainly accentuated these little discards, but notice how subtle these were. You simply weren’t supposed to use your off arm like this while dribbling. That’s why for two decades there was a debate about whether Jordan pushed Brian Russell on his final shot. Even a little nudge was strictly forbidden for basically all of basketball history. But based on 2026 officiating, Chris Paul would be fouled here on this little hand check. He’d be allowed to discard that hand check, but this was a normal offensive foul back then. Good call. >> No argument from Chris Paul either. >> So this season, players are really looking to assault defenders with that off arm. So you don’t really have to make any basketball move to get open. You just shove them out of the way. Yay. Heck, the old spin hook move isn’t even called that much anymore either, but pretty much any kind of hooking in the post in the past was an automatic foul or caused an uproar. Look at LeBron’s reaction here after Paul Pierce gives him a little wraparound action. He stops playing. He’s so apoplelectic because it took a second to blow the whistle. The result of all of this is a rise in defensive foul rates this season. If we look at free throws per field goal attempt, this is the highest ratio we’ve seen in 15 years. Well, before the boom in outside shooting changed the game. And we’re seeing more defensive fouls per drive compared to any other season in the camera tracking era. And this coincides with fewer turnovers than ever on these drives. These changes seem small, but remember players self-correct based on how the game is called, so they’re happening while defenses are trying to adapt. Take offensive foul rates. They’re back up this season compared to last year, but I’d argue that’s because offensive players have been way more aggressive in 2026. When we zoom out, we see a much larger trend. Offensive fouls started to decline after the bubble in 2020. And since drives increased, offensive fouls per drive were nearly sliced in half over the preceding decade. And we haven’t even mentioned that the new euro step can give players invincibility stars where if you gather and start euroing around, you can apparently just steamroll defenders. This isn’t always called a defensive foul all the time, but it’s yet another major change in the gather step era that gives defenders basically zero recourse. Whereas the original Euro steps looked more like one step to the side and that certainly did not provide invincibility for the ball handler. Another gatherbased change is what counts as in the act of shooting. Players will often be dribbling, feel contact like a hand check, then shoot and get free throws. The rules say this should still be on the floor, by the way. And this is a far cry from the old days when you had to be um in the act of shooting for it to be in the act versus a player driving getting hit and then going into the shooting motion. >> And they say it is in the act’s reaction when I he was shooting those. >> I don’t know anymore. I I just don’t know. Today, continuation is supposed to begin on the gather, but that means players who are gathering just to protect their dribble are getting free throws when they weren’t necessarily going to shoot. So, if they called this reachin foul here, that’s supposed to be two free throws, even if the player was going to pass. So, in addition to allowing more steps, the gather rule has widened the scope of a shooting foul by quite a bit. And the last major area that jumped the shark and motivated this video is moving screens. Again, falling down seems to be almost a requirement to draw a fowl, even when the screener doesn’t seem to move that much. Because the rest of the time, players are just shoving and pushing and twisting their way into screens and breaking rules left and right, like spreading their legs wide, which is explicitly prohibited. You’re supposed to keep them shoulder width, but that’s almost never called. And here, Jock Landale goes back for more, tries to move with the defender, but he guesses wrong. Tries to stick out that left leg to block him anyway. And this is just chaos. Players are also screening by pushing with their arms. This is a new age technique and leads to this sort of football pass protection type blocking we saw earlier in that Pistons game where screeners are running into defenders and dislodging them or they’re running into defenders and driving through them like they’re blocking for Barry Sanders. >> 59 moving screens weren’t called. >> And there’s even the business of players setting fake screens but actually connecting. And that’s not always called it. It’s just anarchy. Add this all up and it’s no wonder we just saw the most efficient opening month in NBA history by far. And yes, the evolution of strategy and skill we talk about all the time is one major driving factor here, but we know that officiating style can favor offense or defense as well. Since the bubble, there is a very strong relationship between leaguewide offensive rating and shooting fouls called per 100 possessions. Turnovers, charges, gather steps, all of this matters and it’s all pretty complicated. We know players adjust, but the change in shooting foul rates called is enough to predict who is winning possessions or basically whether the offense or defense is allowed to get away with more contact. This is a philosophical choice. I’m not saying it’s objectively good or bad, but I think it’s a problem if we care about defense or having a competitive balance that resembles the 40 years of growth after the ABAN NBA merger. After all, that was when the game exploded behind the play styles of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. Players who thrived under an old set of rules before the sharp turn toward video game offense we’ve seen recently. Those rules required a ton of individual counters and solutions against elite physical defenders. I think that what makes basketball great, but what makes the NBA great historically, we see the best athletes in the world, uh, the most skilled, the the tallest, the fastest, the longest making incredibly athletic plays, uh, despite, uh, equally athletic and talented people and very smart coaches trying to stop them. our our best memories are when you know our LeBron and when our our Kobes and our Jordans when they you know have the world thrown at them and they still produce like we love that. Uh but the ability to see them uh produce at the highest level against against all odds against all comers uh has been diminished and and in my opinion like that is where we’ve we’ve sort of lost something as a lead. I personally think NBA refs are really good at enforcing what the league wants enforced. That’s why the lack of travels is so baffling to me. But I think the bigger question here is about competitive balance, about what it even means for someone like Sha Alexander to put up numbers that would have been cartoonishly impossible in prior generations. And personally, I love defense. I have that bias as a fan, but I like offense even more because when it beats great defense, that’s the pinnacle of basketball to me. Otherwise, it feels a little meaningless when the difficulty level is set to zero. So, this may be the most talented era for offensive players we’ve ever seen. The tactics and strategy certainly blow away the approach of yestery year, but I personally don’t really have a feel for how great some of these individual stars actually are when offenses are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want. To support this channel, patreon.com/thinking basketball. That’s where we have proprietary stats on teams and players throughout the year. We also have a Discord community and you can get all of our extra video content over there or sign up on YouTube as a member where we also live stream the podcast. Thanks for watching all the way to the end on this one. Hope you enjoyed it and that you are having a great day.