Steve Kerr and Draymond Green Share Thoughts on "Carrying" Calls
Last night’s tough loss in Miami showed some improvement and some things to further improve on for the Warriors, but one of the lowlights came in the form of something nobody was really expecting.
Jordan Poole recorded 5 turnovers last night. He didn’t play his best and was a glaring negative in the box score at the end of the game. But 3 of those turnovers were called on him because of “discontinued dribbles”, more commonly known around the NBA as “carrying”.
So what is a “carry”, exactly? According to the NBA rulebook: “A player who is dribbling may not put any part of his hand under the ball and (1) carry it from one point to another or (2) bring it to a pause and then continue to dribble again.” That’s the textbook definition of what a carry is. And you may be wondering, how can that really be the rule if we see it all of the time? Draymond Green had a similar sentiment when asked about the turnovers last night.
Green’s absolutely right. If we go by the literal definition of a carry in the rulebook, your favorite NBA guard probably carries the ball a ton of times per game. Miami’s Gabe Vincent was called for a discontinued dribble as well last night, but Green made sure to point out that two of South Beach’s finest in Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry both get away with it plenty themselves. Steve Kerr gave a similar answer when asked about this new “point of emphasis”, alerting teams through their emails that referees would be looking to call more carrying or “palming” violations. Kerr seemed to also have an idea what the NBA would be looking at next:
Points of emphasis when it comes to officiating have historically been a little sketchy in their implementation. Usually, it’s heavily-enforced for the first quarter of the season, and then we start to see less and less of the called violations as the season continues on. This happened with a certain point of emphasis last year in regards to foul-baiting: There were a ton of no-calls on moves that scorers like James Harden and Joel Embiid relied heavily on to get to the free throw line, and then somewhere through the season, they just… turned back into regular fouls?
That’s likely what’s going to end up being the case with carrying. The NBA relaxed its rules on the discontinued dribble the first time with Allen Iverson, who popularized the modern crossover and was often targeted by officials because he had a tendency to palm the ball. Once the league figured out that it was more fun to watch when players could get a little more creative on offense, they loosened up the calling on it again in the early 2010s.
There’s been a clamoring from fans and social media “referees” recently to see refs tighten up on those kinds of dribbles. What a lot of people don’t realize, just like Draymond Green said, is how often everybody does it. Coaches know it, defenders know it, even offending players themselves are fully aware of it: Grizzlies star Ja Morant himself went to Twitter last night to acknowledge as much:
In the clip Morant responded to, Steve Kerr made sure to point out that what Poole does is, in fact, a textbook carry. But it’s also important to note how widespread the move is across the NBA. It’s undeniable if you watch a full game of basketball that you’re going to see not just a couple carries per game, but a TON of actions which would qualify as that or a “discontinued dribble”.
The NBA has a choice to make with how they execute this. “Points of emphasis” have come to mean almost nothing, so they have the opportunity to make their reputation for enforcing them a legitimate one. It’s strange, however, that if they decide to stand pat, they decide to do it on something which seems to be actively helping the game become more entertaining. Foul-baiting is boring and nobody wants to watch it; why they don’t choose to at least go through with emphasizing that first is a bit beyond understanding.
There are plenty of arguments both ways on whether calling these carries for what they are is beneficial. It’s really just a matter of preference. It can be best attributed to Iverson, and Iverson racked up four scoring titles at under 6 feet tall because he had a little more freedom to move. Iverson was arguably one of the most fun players to watch when he was cooking, and the electric individual offense off-the-dribble we see now owes a lot of its fire to the carry. It’s in the league’s hands now to either encourage cleaner basketball, or let hoopers hoop.
(Brandon Dill / Associated Press)