Offensive fouls

If you didn’t see the Blake Griffin dunk from a few nights ago, or at least hear about it, you must be living under a rock.  NBA players rarely tweet about other plays in the NBA, but everyone was tweeting about this one.  Even LeBron tweeted about it (as you can see here), and that’s how I was lead to the play of the night, and possibly the entire season in the perspective of many NBA fans.  The leaping was impressive, but the play was an offensive foul. 

            Using an off-hand to push the defender away or to block his chance at the ball is an offensive foul.  Blake Griffin clearly used his off-hand as leverage, stabilization, and as a way to keep Kendrick Perkins from having a chance at the ball (whatever small chance he had at competing with Griffin’s leaping ability in the first place).  Ball handlers also use the non-dribbling arm to push off on defenders as they come off of screens, and this is an easy offensive foul call.  Creating space by force is an offensive foul, and it should be called by the officiating crew.  My definition of an offensive foul is why I don’t think that the offensive foul should be eliminated.  The illegal screen violation is more of an offensive foul than the charge call, so all three should be separated by different hand signals by the referee. 

            The charge call should not be eliminated because sometimes players are out of control, but it should be officiated better.  The game is turning soft, and every player in a lower division than the NBA copies the style of play that they view.  A better example needs to be set for the high school kids, which is why they are cleaning up the way players handle themselves.  Now they need to clean up the way in which they play the game.