Voluntarily watching a New York Knicks/Detroit Pistons playoff series in 2025 might amount to self-flagellation, especially when Jalen Brunson is doing what he does:

This is two years in a row that Tobias Harris has had to deal with Brunson’s first round flopping. He’s playing well by the way, 15 points and 13 rebounds in a 100-94 win on Monday night. Should the Sixers have resigned Tobias and traded Joel Embiid instead? 610-632-0975.

On a more serious note, I’d rather claw out my eyeballs than watch Jalen Brunson play “basketball.”

We’ve been over this before.

Drawing fouls is a skill. Joel Embiid did it better than anybody, and most of us looked the other way and/or tried to explain why one guy was worse than the other guy. Embiid would draw his fouls on the block using the rip through or powering his way to the rack, and that aesthetically felt more acceptable than Brunson going around a high middle screen and slowing down to let an opponent bump into him from behind. Embiid tangling with bigs in the paint felt more like ethical hooping than Brunson leaning into contact and jumping at guys on the perimeter. Is he shooting first, or looking for the whistle first? It always feels like the latter.


It’s true that when a shooter goes up, the defender has to leave them space to land. But the NBA also changed the rules a few years ago to address Trae Young-styled foul grifting, saying this:

“in the 2021-22 NBA season, there will be an interpretive change in the officiating of overt, abrupt or abnormal non-basketball moves by offensive players with the ball in an effort to draw fouls”

General flopping and embellishment will always be a judgment call, but in a lot of Brunson sequences he’s making non-basketball moves, and that’s where the refs should put their focus. And they should do it with every player, not just Brunson. Who is tuning in to watch foul hunting from grifters? For who? For what?