>>150533095
Free throw fuckery has plagued the NBA for decades and all they have to do is look at how the NFL deals with holding: You acknowledge that technically it happens all the time but you only call it when it's blatant because otherwise the constant penalties kill the flow of the game.

But the NBA can't do that because free throws are their weapon of choice for manufacturing outcomes. The fact that referees can essentially give points to either team or any player at any time is why the sport is so hilariously corrupt. Like, they don't have to nudge it in a particular direction or hope it stays close so they can make a crucial 4th quarter call. They can just stop the fucking game and give whoever a basket by proxy over and over again if they want to because if touching someone is a foul then everything's a foul. And now it's completely out of control and they can't dial it back because if you call it that way for whatever reason often enough that just becomes the standard. And the standard now is "anything is a foul all the time forever."

>>149702216
The sad truth is that it's almost obligatory though because there's always some fucking retard owner out there looking to poach people from a title team for three times what they're actually worth because they don't consider context. So you either have to dole out ludicrous contracts to everyone and fuck your entire cap situation, or let the idiotic teams that are overbidding for your players have them

Like, Bruce Brown got 2 years and $45 mil from Indiana after the Nuggets won, was eventually discarded with like half a dozen other assets for Siakam because they realized after 30 games he wasn't worth that contract, got traded again and now just signed for vet minimum. So the contract he got was about 15 times what he's worth now and he didn't even last half a season with the team that gave it to him. But they couldn't wait to give it to him because, you know, championship experience and all that.

When you're locked into a bidding war with billionaire dumbasses who think they know things but don't actually know shit either you walk away with nothing or pay a premium for anything. These idiots need to learn to collude like NFL owners do