Wanted to put this up a little earlier but then I crashed my motorcycle so it was postponed a little (don't worry I'm OK, nothing really bad just an aching shoulder and a bruised ego as I crashed it in right in front of the school where I teach :)).

Without further ado, this post is about Intentional fouling. It's a topic that for a long time has been lingering in my head but the trigger for this post was this foul by Jarvis Hayes (Ed Note: changed to Jarvis) which donned him an injury .. (it might as well have been Hollins who was injured: dangerous, dangerous stuff...)

As a born-and-raised-in-Belgium-kid soccer was the game of the playground. Soccer is the only team game nationally televised so naturally I've watched some soccer in my day as well. Since I've made the switch to basketball I've always found it remarkable that it sometimes is a good thing to make a foul.

In soccer, if  you make a foul close to the goal it's a penalty kick, which means a very big chance of making a score. It has even come to the point that if a player would have been head to head with the goaly but the defender makes a desperation foul, the defender is immediately thrown out of the game... Sometimes it's still worth a gamble to make a foul but it's never a good thing if you get caught. (Though I have to say in soccer 1 point is worth a lot more than 1 basket in bball.)

In basketball on the other hand, when there's a situation where the offense is gonna get a sure 2 points, the defender can make the decision to just ram the guy and make him earn the points again. Again, as he already earned them once by doing the thing that would have given him the 2 sure points.

The only negative for the one making the foul is one foul for the defenders. So ok, you can't really do that all the time but still. 1 foul, often on a player who's just a sub and won't be getting 5 fouls anyway is a small price to pay for trading 2points @ 100% for 2points @ 75%...

So, my question to you all is this: what would be against a rule that, in a situation like in the video above, says the offense gets 2 points anyway + 1 bonus free throw. After all, shouldn't the defence be punished for making fouls instead of the offense?

For the sake of clarity: I'm not talking about "regular" shooting fouls, I'm talking about these fouls that are clearly to prevent the offense from getting the easy basket. I find it so weird that a player gets called a "professional" for doing something that's "against the rules"... especially since that thing was dangerous for both players.

As a final treat to you all, the inspirition for the title of this fanpost: