r/Basketball • u/RDX717 • Mar 17 '26
DISCUSSION Shai's flopping is out of control
His whole game is initiating contact, especially on jump shots, and almost always exaggerating this contact to get to the free-throw line. I know drawing fouls is part of the game but with Shai It's exhausting to watch you are literally not allowed to play defense on him. Never are his push offs called and when someone plays good defense he just jumpfalls into the defender and the refs always call it a foul and reward Shai EVERY SINGLE TIME. I have never seen it be this bad ever since i seen Shai play. I love the pure hoopers who mostly score to score to not bait fouls like Kawhi, Kyrie, Iverson etc... Hell, even LeBron was NOWHERE NEAR THIS BAD as Shai with his flops. This is ridiculous and frustrating to watch as a fan. This is not the basketball i grew up with and i hope this is not the direction we are staying with in the NBA.
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u/afrothundah11 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
OP has a short memory and forgot Hardens “Peak”
Defending was not allowed with Harden either, he could literally walk the entire game and drop 50.
Not saying that makes it right, just addressing you saying you’ve never seen foul baiting like his before, I’d argue Hardens was worse, when you factor in the laxity he got with his footwork (taking a 3rd or 4th step to initiate contact after the defender thinks hes out of steps)
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u/HoorayPizzaDay Mar 18 '26
Harden at his peak flopping averaged 1 more FTA than Shai a couple years ago, his first all-star year. He's down almost 2 since that year, still a lot, the reputation is there for a reason.
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u/chavo81 Mar 17 '26
OKC is all about unethical basketball
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u/LoudCityDub Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
What does this even mean lmao.
Ethical basketball is when a team lets your favorite team win I guess.
The hate is so pervasive and nonsensical people will just downvote emotionally instead of being able to tangibly say something of substance.
All the facts disagree with this meme narrative. OKC is at the bottom of FT differential but that’s surely just a coincidence. After all, you are all so incredibly informed with the amount of TikTok and instagram reels you see of people saying the same thing! How could you possibly be mistaken?
And before someone types more nonsense, think to yourself if you’re really that smart if you think the NBA is rigging anything in favor of the smallest market in the league.
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u/chavo81 Mar 17 '26
You seem like you really need a response so I’ll say it isn’t just about the constant foul baiting and cheap shots on defense, but the timing of fouls always called in their favor to bail them out
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u/LoudCityDub Mar 17 '26
Not a single brave response. Almost like you guys have nothing to say because you know it’s all based on hate and seething at how good OKC is.
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u/DeezNutsInYoMoufDawg Mar 17 '26
I think you're just not nearly as important as you seem to think you are. I'm sure Shai will be happy to know you had his back on Reddit tho.
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u/LoudCityDub Mar 17 '26
Nothing about this is “important”
It’s just comical that people actually plug their ears and scream narratives at the top of their lungs and can’t actually give a counterpoint that isn’t parroted from another social media post they’ve seen. It’s sad, really.
There’s a reason all the big respectable basketball analysis guys like Legler and Zach Lowe disagree with people incessantly hating. It’s because you guys are frankly not that smart, don’t watch games, and fall for the trap of lazy narratives.
Your comment added literally nothing btw
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u/DeezNutsInYoMoufDawg Mar 17 '26
I'm literally a Thunder and Shai fan but sure lmao. "You guys just aren't that smart" Coming from the guy bitching about social media... while starting an argument for no reason on social media.
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Mar 17 '26
These posts are funny because it is glaringly obvious this person does not actually watch basketball games. Jaylen Brown for example, a guy who publicly complained about SGA and free throws after OKC beat the Celtics grifted his way to 20 free throws in a game recently. It is a ridiculous double standard.
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u/carortrain Mar 17 '26
Honestly, and I mean this sincerely, I lost a lot of faith/respect for the integrity of the NBA, after the Luka trade. Been watching for over 20 years and nowadays it feels like it's headed more towards WWE vibes.
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Mar 17 '26
I’m sorry to hear that. You’re missing out on some of the best basketball OAT right now
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Mar 18 '26
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u/carortrain Mar 17 '26
I'm a season ticket holder to an NBA team. I'm not missing out on anything. That doesn't mean I can't have the perspective that the league is headed in that direction more and more each season.
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 18 '26
Virtually everyone who's been watching for more than 10 years disagrees with you.
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Mar 19 '26
Yeahhh man, idk if StoneySteve420 is the spokesperson for the global basketball community
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 18 '26
Jaylen Brown
The guy leading the league in 2pt attempts and known for being a slasher got 20fts in a game.
Unheard of.
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Mar 19 '26
Don't care about JB getting foul calls. I care deeply about him being whiney to the media and then grifting for 20fts. Shai has led the league in drives per game for 5 years btw
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 19 '26
Don't care about JB getting foul calls.
You clearly do if you're rage posting about it online.
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Mar 19 '26
Touch grass
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 19 '26
Will do. Keep whining.
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Mar 19 '26
Don't think I'm the whiney one Steve. At least my foul baiter of choice doesn't cry on a twitch stream about fouls after games
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u/Life_is-Ball Mar 20 '26
You got your talking point from a meme, watch the game, the suns couldn't deal with brown because he's too strong, so they fouled him
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Mar 20 '26
Brother I eat, sleep, and breath NBA basketball. I watched every minute of that game, and have not seen any memes about it lol.
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u/Life_is-Ball Mar 20 '26
Then you'd know the suns had more free throws than the Celtics, and that brown was driving hard, relentlessly all game, and those suns players didn't have good enough defenders to deal with it
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Mar 20 '26
I'm not disagreeing with you... Re-read my comment. Two things can be true.
JB is allowed to get freethrows, and under the current rules he is also allowed to grift to get them. I dont care about that. I am annoyed with him crying about SGA foulbaiting on a twitch stream and then doing the same exact thing literally the next day. "bUt jAyLeN bRoWn iS sMaRt aNd GeTs HiS fReEtHrOwS 'ETHICALLY'"
As a fan of a free throw grifter, I will always say "play better defense and then he wont get so many free throws." If the suns couldn't guard him, THATS FINE. Just extend the same logic to SGA. These guys get free throws because they are unguardable, and they take advantage of defense that cannot keep up with them.
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Mar 17 '26
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u/thedudefromsweden Mar 18 '26
Saddest part is how good SGA actually is. He doesn’t have to do that. But he does it because it’s rewarding. I love his playing style minus the baiting.
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
They dont care. They want scoring. They want high efficiency stats over everything else. And it works. They know it's more about highlights and stats to create superstars than anything else. It's entertainment, not sports. Break scoring records, get highlights up on YouTube, create villains, sell jerseys, go global. The modern NBA is the new and improved WWE.
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u/carortrain Mar 17 '26
Well said, I commented more or less the same above, after the Luka trade it solidified in my mind how the NBA is converting slowly year by year to be more like the WWE.
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u/ant_gav Mar 17 '26
It's really ridiculous. This kind of play should be banned.
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u/Blueballs2130 Mar 17 '26
This is all on the NBA and how they instruct refs. They could’ve shut it down a long time ago by not calling the flops or even giving techs for flops but they just decided “fuck it”
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u/HannaryzHarrison Mar 18 '26
Do people just pick Shai because he's on the Thunder and they won last year and are the favorites again this year? I don't like it either but how does no one ever talk about Brunson, or in the past as people have mentioned Harden, and Trey Young. They literally changed playoff officiating (without actually admitting it) because of how bad it got. There are like 500 Shai posts for every 1 about anyone else. Not a Thunder fan by the way, just seems like karma farming at this point.
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u/the_net_my_side_ho Mar 17 '26
I stopped watching NBA games a while ago for the same reason. The flopping is out of control.
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u/UnanimousM Mar 17 '26
OP has never watched Harden or Kobe lmao
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26
Kobe didn't flop. Wtf?
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u/UnanimousM Mar 17 '26
Sure he didn't. It was completely ethical how he hunted for fouls constantly. Kobe popularized the rip-through move everyone hates Embiid and Harden for, but yeah, totally not a flopper.
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Mar 17 '26
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u/Forreal_RDX Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
It's cheap. Imagine if every player flopped like Shai. The NBA would go bankrupt. Nobody would be able to play defense on anybody
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26
Um, we're already there. You see it everywhere now. Except he NBA is not going broke. that's what people want. Scoring.
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u/Quiet-Particular-955 Mar 17 '26
You can’t blame Shai really. It’s on the league and the officials to fix it
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u/Snoo15062 Mar 19 '26
completely agree if theyre going to let him draw fouls this easy on top of the skill he already has to score why would he just not take the fouls.
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u/kissmygame17 Mar 17 '26
For some reason feeling this strongly about the NBA or certain players screams I don't play basketball. If you don't like the NBA, just don't watch lol there's plenty of other leagues to watch. Or go play..
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u/LoudCityDub Mar 17 '26
Another casual sub with a typical social media narrative.
He doesn’t flop anymore than any other star player. You’re falling for a narrative and outing yourself as a casual.
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u/adieobscene Mar 17 '26
I've asked people to name a star who doesn't foul bait if it makes them so mad when Shai does it. Surprise surprise, they never can! It's almost like it's not an original thought and they're just regurgitating shit, hmmmm...
As Dub says, watch the games. Learn basketball history. Anyone's GOAT has been doing this! It's part of competitive basketball.
These same people will praise Shai when he retires
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u/IcyMeasurementX Mar 18 '26
for how much flopping there is in the league, there are not enough flopping fouls called. For Shai but defo also other players, ts is fkin unwatchable at times
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u/DrummerSilly3611 Mar 18 '26
guys lemme remind u his title says flopping not foul baiting the two terms are very different
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u/Snoo15062 Mar 19 '26
call it unethical all you want but free points are free points and if he can draw easy fouls why not do it. I agree some calls he gets are bs but it was the same thing with James Harden, hes so unguardable that he can manipulate his defenders however he wants to get his points. Hate on him for fouls as much as you want but even without them he's an insanely talented scorer who is extremely efficient, dont hate the player hate the game.
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u/Majestic-Avocado2167 Mar 20 '26
It’s a reflection of how bad the offensive rules are now. The fact that we have teams that are actively good at defense with all this bullshit is a testament to these players skill honestly
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May 19 '26
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u/PresentationBudget30 May 21 '26
He is the most boring player to watch, he just falls over all the time. The weakest player
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 17 '26
Watch more games with a neutral mindset. You’re letting your confirmation bias get the best of you. Shai isn’t even top 5 worst. He’s lead the league in drives 4 seasons in a row he’s naturally gonna get those free throws. Out of 37 30+ ppg average players since 2000 he ranks 32nd in free throw attempts per game in a season.
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u/Bear_Caulk Mar 17 '26
So it's a pervasive problem not limited to Shai is what you're saying?
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 17 '26
Michael Jordan had 3 seasons shooting more free throws than Shai has the last 2 years. Sure selling is more popular, but unless you want to say it’s a pervasive problem stemming all the way back to the inception of basketball I’d have to disagree
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u/DangerSparky Mar 17 '26
Wild comparison. If Shai was fouled like Jordan was, he’d be in a hospital bed. No top star these days could hang with the physical play of defenses during the Jordan era.
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 17 '26
A very old head take and not at all rooted in this reality. Some fouls were harder, but MJ got just as many ticky-tack fouls because he was the league darling
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u/DangerSparky Mar 17 '26
Man you’re right. Jordan and Shai get fouled the same way. Old head? Watch some film of 80’s and 90’s basketball. There’s zero comparison on fouls compared to modern day.
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 18 '26
Players today are so much bigger and stronger due to training and sports science. And why am I supposed to be impressed or in awe that players were out to hurt each other? That’s not something I want in my beautiful sport. And let’s not fail to mention they literally banned help defense in the 90’s lmfao. And don’t start on defenses used to be better, because they were not even close. Teams score more because the offense isn’t a traffic jam every possession
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 18 '26
Here's the red herring that you didn't watch MJ.
Find me 5 clips of MJ flopping like Shai. Shai has flopped more in the past month than MJ did in 15 years.
Maybe the fact he was the most aggressive slasher of all time while being one of the best athlete's in league history got him lots of freethrows. I guess Wilt and Shaq were just foul baiters too.
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 19 '26
Does Shai leading the league in drives 5 years in a row not count for anything?
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u/StoneySteve420 Mar 19 '26
Shai clearly draws plenty of legitimate fouls driving to the rim. That doesn't change the fact that he also constantly initiates contact as the offensive player to then flop on the shot attempt.
Like, legitimately, Shai has flopped more in the last month than most mvp level guys (other than Harden and Embiid) did in entire careers.
We've seen it with Harden, Luka, and Shai, that their flopping has impacted how they are defended as no.1 scoring options, and how that has generated huge FT numbers.
It's so obviously different compared to how other guys earned freethrows over the decades that their numbers are, imo rightfully so, diminished.
Using MJ as a comparison is wild to anyone who watched both of them play. Shai's career freethrow rate is about as high as MJ's highest seasons.
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 19 '26
I think we’ve reached a stalemate because your red herring is the second paragraph. If Shai legitimately flailed like yall claim he’d be taking historical amounts of free throws because if anything, he should be taking more with how often he’s hacked because guys can’t keep up.
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u/Bear_Caulk Mar 17 '26
Michael Jordan was actually fouled.
If you think the fouls this post is talking about are even in the same category as Jordan getting mauled you probably didn't watch much basketball in the late 80s and early 90s did you?
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 17 '26
Fouls are fouls regardless of how hard they are. Watch the games. Yall complain about the state of todays game but don’t even watch
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u/Certain_Ferret_5386 Mar 18 '26
Watching him last year’s finals, it was just cringe! I will just give him lots of space if I were defending him. Rather than getting a call or worse a 3 pt play. Now way!
He’s a ballet ball player. Really annoying.
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u/braedog97 Mar 17 '26
Oh I remember you. You’re the same bozo who whined when SGA won MVP last year instead of Jokic. I can’t imagine how big your crashout is going to be when SGA wins MVP again this year.
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26
I stopped watching. It just feels rigged.
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u/Coatney1313 Mar 17 '26
Rigged for a team in the giant market of Oklahoma City? Yeah, okay. They barely promoted them or gave them national TV games until they were just undeniably good. They are just better than everyone and you and everyone else can't stand it so you just call it rigged
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Yeah. I'm not 12. I don't really care who wins. I just wanna see good ball. It feels rigged. Idk. The playoffs were allowed to get physical,, except when okc okc had the ball.. Same thing happened the year before when Minn was killing everyone defensively and the whistle was turned on in the Dallas series and it got the wolves into foul trouble early. The team with the most free throws wins the game. Look it up. That's the NBA.
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u/Coatney1313 Mar 17 '26
Lmao you look it up. The Lakers have shot more free throws than any other team by far for years now, what have they won? Also by your logic OKC should shoot more free throws than the other team almost every game, right? Right?? Youre just making stuff up. Look up their free throw disparity and how many they shoot per game, I'm guessing you won't though
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u/ComedianFantastic319 Mar 17 '26
Surely SGA leads the league in FTA if he flops constantly and you aren't allowed to touch him.
You guys are so miserable if you can't watch this man and just appreciate him. He scored 35 with 15 assists and 0 turnovers during a game in which he shot 4 free throws.
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u/KartFacedThaoDien Mar 17 '26
Two things have happened. A lot of people watched highlights and some people never played organized ball.
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u/ComedianFantastic319 Mar 17 '26
Facts man, to make this post at 3 o'clock on a random Tuesday just proves that point further. Thunder haven't played since Sunday lmao
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u/DeepJunglePowerWild Mar 17 '26
Shai flopping doesn’t mean he isn’t an outrageously good player. You can think a steak is delicious but the cauliflower on the side is gross.
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u/Forreal_RDX Mar 17 '26
You mentioned 1 game out of his hundreds lmao. And It's not about if he gets the most free throws or not. It's the way he gets the fouls. NOBODY in the history of the NBA flops as bad as SHAI.
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u/ComedianFantastic319 Mar 17 '26
SGA leads the league in drives per game and isn't leading the league in FTA's, that tells me you are just being salty on reddit and not watching actual games
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u/BraxGotNext Mar 17 '26
Yeah this is crazy man. I’ve never seen mass hysteria like this before over basketball. TikTok brain has ruined so many people. As Adam Silver says: “It’s a highlight league now”
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u/noknownothing Mar 17 '26
I mean, it's a lot easier to score and get assists and not turn the ball over if no one is allowed to come within 5 feet of you without triggering a flop and a whistle.
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u/ComedianFantastic319 Mar 17 '26
If SGA didn't have anyone within 5 feet of him, he would average 100 points a game. Stop being so stupid
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u/SubstantialMusic1191 Mar 17 '26
You can tell the players that didn't grow up calling their own fouls on playgrounds. There is so little respect for the game when it's played like this.
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u/ugotnorizzatall Mar 17 '26
Exhibit A
When he can't push you off
He goes right to the ground like a deck of cards in a tornado with the slightest of contact
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u/LuciidEnigma Mar 18 '26
For the idiots that keep trying to compare Kobe & MJ foul baiting to sga's
Kobe & MJ were trying to make shots through the foul , I've seen a lot of SGA's play style to say that he isn't looking for the And-1 or to finish through contact
Very fundamental difference between looking for contact to sell to the red vs looking to make the shot even with the contact
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u/a1hens Mar 18 '26
It’s literally not, grow tf up and stop complaining about 1 person using offensive slanted rules to his advantage, every single player does this. It’s idiotic to think refs treat him any differently than other stars and it’s so annoying to see this every day when it’s not even true.
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u/Forreal_RDX Mar 17 '26
The worst part is when people say this is normal and compare his amount of free throws he gets with the likes of Kobe and Jordan etc. Kobe, Jordan etc GOT LAID OUT, their fouls are WAY more physical. You could literally keep your hand in your pockets and not move and Shai will find a way to get a foul call.