Lowell Cohn: With NBA season over, time to focus on a better game

Baseball is a better game than basketball. This is especially true of baseball MLB-style and basketball NBA-style.

Start with the easy, obvious stuff.

Foul calls in basketball are a drag. Guys are playing and the game is flowing and suddenly an official blows his whistle for something or other, and the game stops. The narrative stops, the story stops while the free-throw thing happens. A game of constant interruptions.

The guy who drew the foul is angry because - get this - no one in the NBA ever committed a foul. Players who get called for fouls always get screwed - that’s what they believe. A sense of grievance permeates a basketball game from the opening tipoff onward. Moral grievance. Complaining. Bickering. Sour.

Arguments are a part of baseball, but not every minute, not all encompassing. Not as the permanent feature of the game.

Then there’s this issue: What exactly is a foul?

If one player hits another player over the head with a pitchfork, that’s clearly a foul. What about the charging-blocking thing? Did the offensive player or the defensive player initiate the contact? You got me.

This charging-blocking call changes a million times a game. One time it’s the defender’s fault. Next time it’s the offensive player’s fault. The officials are in an impossible position, and consistency is hopeless. Totally whimsical. Chancy. Arbitrary.

In baseball you know what a strike is. That’s a start. Umpires have different strike zones, but players adjust. I’m saying there’s general agreement on the meaning of a strike. Not so with a foul.

Lack of clarity pervades basketball on the most basic level.

And NBA officials call games differently in the playoffs. This is a mind-blower. And seems unprofessional. Officials allow more contact - hitting and slamming - than in the regular season. Announcers justify this double standard by saying, “That’s playoff basketball.” As if that explains anything. They’re saying basketball has two separate rulebooks, one for the regular season, another for the playoffs.

How’s that for a rinky-dink league?

In postseason baseball, the meaning of a strike does not change. A double play is still a double play. A homer is a homer.

Everything I just named is the small stuff that’s wrong with hoops. The annoying stuff. Now for the serious issues.

The NBA gets to change foul calls the next day. What an absurd concept.

The league assessed Draymond Green a flagrant foul for taking a swipe at LeBron James in Game 4 of the Finals, assessed the flagrant after the fact even though the game officials didn’t even call a common foul on him.

I am not arguing the correctness of the league’s call. That’s another issue. I am arguing the double jeopardy of the call. Because the league stuck its nose into a completed game and ruled against Green, he couldn’t play Game 5 - the beginning of the end for the Warriors.

The three officials who worked the game were there, felt the game, were attuned to its rhythm.

They were the men in charge and in a position to decide. The league should have let the officials’ judgment stand. In baseball, a Doomsday Committee doesn’t rule the next day that a ball was a strike.

Sure, if there’s a bench-clearing brawl, MLB assesses suspensions. Or if someone takes PEDs or a pitcher doctors the ball. But this oversight by the league is not an everyday deal. Not a routine review. Not an essential part of the game. Doesn’t give off a fish odor.

After the Green foul in Game 4, the league spoke to “witnesses” and made a case against Green. Bad move. Why? Because the league made its own officials look inept. The league second-guessed its officials, showed them up.

What a crummy system.

When I was a kid and did something stupid, my mom would let me have it. OK, I deserved it. But as a coup de grace, she would add, “Just wait till your father gets home.”

“You mean this wasn’t enough?” I’d think. “There’s more?” And I’d be scared to death.

The NBA perpetually tells its players, “Just wait till your father gets home.” The meting out of justice never ends. And crime and punishment can change, and does change. Ask the Warriors.

This ever-evolving punishment leads to serious charges against the NBA. When Green got suspended, the Warriors led the Cavaliers 3-1. If the series had been tied 2-2, would the league have suspended him? Lots of people asked me that question.

The point? Reasonable people wondered - feared - the league wanted to help Cleveland. Wanted to prolong the series. Wanted a seven-game series. Seven games would extend the drama, be good for TV and bring in more revenue.

I am not saying this was the case. But people wondered. It is bad when people wonder.

If people wondered about the league’s intentions, it means they were wondering about the league’s integrity. Nothing less. They were wondering if the NBA fixed the Finals.

I am not saying the NBA fixed the Finals. But the league allowed people to speculate. To accuse. Allowed the unspeakable to be spoken.

Allowed this dark cloud to linger over its glory moment. The league looked phony and corrupt. Bad look.

And I’ll tell you this. Major League Baseball rarely looks phony and corrupt. In my lifetime, no one ever said the World Series was fixed. The World Series was fixed in the Black Sox Scandal. Sure. But that was 97 years ago. It wasn’t last week.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.