Let's talk about charges

After a weekend that saw two stars get hurt because a defender undercut them, is it time to rethink the polarizing rule?

No sport requires mid-air skill and balance the way NBA basketball does. On any play, some of the best athletes in the world might meet at the rim, several feet off the ground, and even unsuccessful dunk attempts are a sight to behold. It’s the sport at its full majesty.

Far too often, though, you’ll see a defender slide over late and wind up underneath the shooter in a way that just looks incredibly dangerous for everyone. This past weekend, we such plays twice injure superstars (Ja Morant and Giannis Antetokounmpo) whose availability for their respective game twos is now in question.

We’ve seen an already loud contingent (I mostly side with) raise their voices even further to demand the charge be banned from the sport. Because it’s the internet, the other side of the discussion has matched that ferocity. Middle ground is for cowards, after all.

Well, I guess I’m a coward.

On one hand, I do understand, and mostly agree, that it doesn’t feel like a basketball play to basically stand there and hope to get knocked over when so much of the rest of the sport is so athletic. If I walked into a gym and tried to take a call a charge in a pickup game, I’d volunteer myself to the authorities as I don’t belong in the free world with everyone else.

On the other, a ball-handler flattening anyone who stands between him and the basket doesn’t exactly match up with the amount of skill, finesse and creativity basketball demands of its athletes, either. Shaquille O’Neal might still be playing now at the ripe old age of 51 if he was allowed to merely trample defenders.

Also, the NBA’s rules are currently too skewed in favor of scorers as it is, and removing a tool from defenders’ toolbox feels like a step in the wrong direction.

On top of that, if charges are banned simply as a means to make the game safer, I don’t know that moving all those collisions off the ground really accomplishes that, either. Framing it under safety sounds nice but that isn’t really getting fixed.

Instead, let’s just call it for what it is: Banning the charge forces more plays to occur at the rim and thus makes the sport more exciting. If that’s the point, then, yeah, I’m on board. We can paint the explanations for all this in any way we want but at the end of the day, scaling back charges forces the best athletes in the world to do more athletic stuff. Works for me.

If charges are scaled back, however, something would need to be done about defense on the perimeter — the real starting point of this issue.

As a result of the focus on pacing and spacing, and with hand-checking having been all but completely removed from the sport, ball-handlers are attacking the rim with unimaginable speed and ferocity. More often than not, defenders are sliding over late to take charges because they have no other choice. So if we really are seriously considering getting rid of charges (and to be clear, we aren’t, actually), then the NBA would have to allow more physicality on the perimeter.

Frankly, the league should do this regardless. Getting rid of hand-checking made some sense back when they did it because the game was getting too stuck in the mud but the pendulum has swung too far in offensive players’ direction — especially for smaller guards. Giving the best athletes on the planet a 10-foot runway to elevate and launch themselves toward the rim has resulted in collisions near the restricted area becoming all the more dangerous.

It’s entertaining as all hell, sure, but guys are falling from several feet in the air after contact with almost no time to adjust before they come crashing to the floor — sometimes in traffic. It’s weird to think some extra physicality would actually make the game safer, but that’s exactly what the NBA should focus on to keep people healthier.

Thing is: As I’ve posited before, I don’t think the league is interested in anything that might curb individual scoring. Flopping has been a detriment to the perception of the NBA for years and continues unabated. Foul grifting was temporarily eased only to see several stars whine enough to bring it right back. Adam Silver can’t seem to get anyone to care about the regular season so his approach has been to inflate the numbers.

So as banning the charge is probably a nonstarter, can the call, itself, be tweaked? There are a few choices here.

First and most logical among the options is to expand the restricted section. This would hopefully mean charges take place closer to where players are taking off from, rather than where they’re landing. It would put even more stress on defenders to rotate in time, though, so again, this would have to be accompanied by allowing defense to be played on the perimeter.

Another addition to the rule can be calling flagrant fouls on unsuccessful charges that put the offensive player in additional danger. They already double check potential intent with players who land in shooters’ landing zones on the perimeter. Why can’t that reading of the rule be applied to the more dangerous, acrobatic attempts near the basket?

Lastly — and this wouldn’t necessarily make the call safer or anything, I just hate it — stop calling charges for guys who stand in the way of passers or guys just running up the court hoping they take one extra step. It’s stupid. A general rule should be that if that charge attempt would start a fight in a pickup game, it shouldn’t be rewarded at the highest level of the sport.

I do legitimately hope they either address the rule or make it so guys don’t have such easy routes to the paint to be able to load up on a launchpad but, as it doesn’t directly impact league revenue, I’m skeptical Silver is even aware of the concerns.

At its best, the NBA combines acrobatics with skill and brute strength. On any given play, you can watch some of the greatest athletes in the history of the planet do something spectacular on either side of the ball. The charge is the antithesis to all that, but does have its place. The NBA can’t ban it altogether, but Silver and the competition committee does need to tweak it to reintroduce the best parts of the sport.