Is Phil Jackson Right About LeBron James' Frequent Traveling?
Earlier this season against the Miami Heat, Kendrick Perkins of the Cleveland Cavaliers caught the ball near the top of the key. A few extra pivots and feet shuffles later, he had taken nine steps in what is now one of the most infamous travels in recent memory.
Traveling is not a new issue in the NBA. A quick YouTube search yields hundreds of user-compiled missed traveling calls, some of which are quite egregious.
That's why Phil Jackson's recent and pointed comments to Bleacher Report's Howard Beck about LeBron James' questionable footwork doesn't come as a complete shock.
"I watch LeBron James, for example," he said. "He might [travel] every other time he catches the basketball if he's off the ball. He catches the ball, moves both his feet. You see it happen all the time. There's no structure, there's no discipline, there's no 'How do we play this game' type of attitude. And it goes all the way through the game. To the point where now guys don't screen—they push guys off with their hands."
The rules for traveling in the NBA are quite extensive, and it's why most casual observers detect a travel based on feel—a move didn't quite look right, and therefore it involved an extra step.
Referees are trained to see these violations more accurately than the average fan, but ultimately they're making split-second decisions and can only make calls that they directly observe.
In James' case, this isn't the first time he's been the subject of traveling-based ridicule. In 2009, his famous "crab dribble" cost the Cavs a midseason game against the Washington Wizards. Despite defending the maneuver in his postgame interview, James certainly took an extra step.
But Jackson isn't talking about the two-step lead-up to shots or layups, which is often the subject of some of the more obvious infractions. Although they make for easy focal points of attention to drum up conversation concerning reform, they don't comprise the majority of missed traveling calls.
Jackson is talking about those Perkins-style plays—the footwork before a player puts the ball on the floor.
To the NBA's credit, the league has cleaned up some aspects of traveling. In particular, the 2014-15 officiating Points of Emphasis addresses a move in which a player extends his non-pivot foot in one direction before dribbling the other way.
This is a classic move for players on the verge of driving, but it often leads to them lifting their pivot foot before putting the ball on the floor. As the rulebook clearly states, this is a traveling violation: "In starting a dribble after (1) receiving the ball while standing still, or (2) coming to a legal stop, the ball must be out of the player’s hand before the pivot foot is raised off the floor."
Here's an example of DeMarcus Cousins and Chris Copeland doing just that:
Whether or not James travels more or less than anyone else is up for debate because there's no publicly available database of blown traveling calls.
Just like every other player in the league, he insignificantly shuffles his feet on the catch and occasionally gets away with lifting that pivot foot before dribbling.
Here we can see an example of both of these from the Eastern Conference Finals, when James catches the ball in the post. As he gathers himself, he initially establishes his right foot as his pivot foot because his left slightly slides to keep balance. But as he turns to face up, his pivot foot changes to the left.
By the technical definition, this is a travel. Moments later, he walks again by committing the Copeland-Cousins violation described above.
The visual evidence throughout the playoffs absolutely backs up Jackson's claim that James gets away with questionable footwork on occasion. But the tone of his remarks, in which he clearly conveys that James is only an example, is also supported.
James might be the most high-profile rule-breaker, but he's by no obvious measure the most prolific. These violations are symptomatic of the league's unwillingness to blow the whistle, and it has trickled down into the basic footwork of most NBA players.
Just take a look at reining MVP Stephen Curry getting away with his own set of travels:
The real traveling epidemic, however, has nothing to do with guards or guard play. It's the big men with happy feet in the paint that represent the bigger issue.
While the Copeland and Cousins examples are clear-cut, the James and Curry examples are less so and more difficult to whistle. They're already hard to see on replay and in slow motion. Referees have to pick up on these slight travels while also paying full attention to their other game-management responsibilities.
What's less excusable is how freely big men hop around in the paint with reckless abandon. Timofey Mozgov was the biggest offender in the Finals, and the entire Warriors bench was constantly up in arms about it. Even James got in on some of the action, too.
It's what happens after a player picks up his dribble in the paint that has been the most troublesome area. Part of this is understandable: With so many bodies tangling in tight quarters, officials will miss some of these calls.
From the offensive players' perspective, it's much more difficult to maintain balanced footing when defenders are physically bumping them off of their spots. In some cases, travels are initiated by non-called fouls. But in most cases, the offensive players are the ones getting away with all kinds of illegal moves by constantly changing pivot feet.
To illustrate the point, here are six missed interior traveling calls from Game 7 of the Los Angeles Clippers-San Antonio Spurs first-round playoff series. See if you can spot them:
Pick any game and you'll find similar levels of illegal footwork.
It's not as if officials are making a point of not blowing the whistle when a player travels. It's just that in the course of managing everything else, traveling seems to get lost.
The only way to fix the problem is through a much greater emphasis on traveling. Even if officials blow a play dead for even the most minor travels, it will force players to adjust and pay more attention to the finer points of footwork fundamentals.
If the behavior remains unpunished, players will continue to push the boundaries.
