NBA Playoffs: LeBron James and Co. Spend Too Much Time on the Ground

Growing up playing sports, badly most of the time, there was an unwritten rule that I thought applied regardless of what the game was.  No matter the cause, if for some reason you were knocked to the ground, you got right back up as quickly as possible. 

Regardless of how you got there, unless you were seriously hurt, it was a matter of pride.  You wanted to send a message to whoever caused you to hit the deck that it didn’t bother you.

The last thing you ever wanted was for anyone to think you might be hurt, that something an opponent did might have effected you.

Watching the NBA playoffs, I guess things have changed.

Almost on a game by game basis, and often several times, a player will get knocked to the ground. Instead of getting right back up, the player will lie on the ground for minutes.  The commentators will talk about whether or not the player is hurt, and you hope he is ok.

For a second you might start to think the player is injured. Then shockingly, the player, despite a few seconds earlier rolling on the ground writhing in pain, gets up, and walks to the foul line. 

He is fine, and it drives me crazy.

The concept of flopping in the NBA has started to receive a lot of attention.  Players lying on the ground crying in pain one second, and then getting right up after they have received all of the attention, is different than flopping.  But it is just as bad.

Similar to flopping, players acting like this hurts the game because of how it is handled by the officials.  NBA refs have become whistle-happy when it comes to calling flagrant fouls.  The problem though is that these flagrant foul calls are often made not because of the foul but based on how the player reacts.

Take a hard foul, but not lay on the ground, and it is just two shots.  But stay face down on the court, suddenly one of the refs starts thinking – maybe it was a harder foul than they thought.  And then, flagrant, two shots and get the ball back.

I’ve seen many players on all teams do this but the worst culprit of all is LeBron James.

James is an amazing talent, and is at the very worst, the second best player in the NBA.  But over the last year or so, he has developed a habit of falling to the ground, rolling around in what looks like agonizing pain, making sure all the cameras are pointed solely at him. He then miraculously gets himself off the ground after a few minutes and goes on without any ill effects from whatever caused him to be on the floor.

James is 6’8, 250 pounds.  It should take an awful lot to knock him down.  It should take even more to keep him down.  But he has decided he would rather take every chance he can to lie on the ground for extended periods of time.  Far too frequently for someone of his size and ability he is hitting the ground like he was Ricky getting shot in Boyz N the Hood. 

A great debate is Kobe vs. LeBron.  I see Kobe playing through injuries when most players would have undergone surgery.  I see LeBron on the other hand content to stay seated on the ground every chance he gets.  Advantage Kobe.  

To stop all these overreactions, I would not mind seeing the NBA put in some rules similar to the NFL – if you stay on the ground and play has to be delayed, the player has to come out of the game.  Would LeBron and others continue to not get themselves up if they knew they had to also come out of the game?

But it should not take a rule.  Players should not want to act this way.   Any time it happens, I keep wishing to see a teammate grab the player by the jersey, slap him around and yell “You can act like a man,” the way the Godfather did with Johnny Fontane.

And with LeBron, much of the time it is a pleasure to watch him play, as he has the ability to do things with his career that have never been done.  Unfortunately, though, unless he changes his act, we all will have to witness his cry baby antics every time he suffers any semi-hard foul.