“Ethical basketball” has become one of the funnier phrases floating around NBA discourse lately, but like most internet jokes, there’s a real conversation buried underneath it.

At its core, “ethical basketball” is the idea that there is a “right” way to play the game. It usually refers to basketball that feels pure: ball movement, tough shot-making, defense, physicality, footwork, post play, and players earning buckets without constantly hunting whistles. On the other side of that conversation is what many fans would call “unethical basketball”: foul baiting, exaggerating contact, living at the free throw line, and turning games into a parade of stoppages.

And I get it. I really do.

Foul baiting has gotten a tad out of hand. There are possessions where it feels like the offensive player is less interested in actually scoring than he is in tricking the referee into making a call. That can be frustrating to watch, especially when the game slows down and stars are rewarded for initiating contact that doesn’t always feel natural to the flow of basketball.

But here’s the thing: the rules are the rules.

Great players have always used the rules to their advantage. That’s not new. It’s not unique to this era. It’s not even unique to basketball. If the league allows certain movements, certain contact, certain gather steps, certain screens, or certain interpretations of shooting fouls, the smartest players and teams are going to exploit them. That’s what elite competitors do.

This reminds me a lot of the “Tush Push” conversation in the NFL. Do I necessarily like the play? Not really. It’s not exactly the most beautiful football ever created. But is it legal? Yes. And because it’s legal, the Eagles would be foolish not to use it. Until the NFL bans it, it’s part of the game.

The same thing applies to the Tuck Rule. Whether fans liked it or not, it was the rule. Teams, players, and coaches operate inside the rulebook they’re given. If the rulebook creates a loophole, that’s on the league to fix.

So when people call foul baiting “unethical,” I think the better question is this: if the NBA doesn’t want it in the game, why hasn’t the league cracked down on it more aggressively?

They’ve already done this with flopping. The NBA recognized that exaggerated contact was hurting the product, so they created penalties and fines to discourage it. If foul baiting has reached that same level, then maybe it’s time for the league to treat it the same way.

But until then, I have a hard time calling it unethical.

Annoying? Sure. Overused? Absolutely. Bad for the flow of the game? At times, yes. But unethical? That feels like a stretch. And that’s coming from someone who is a purist when it comes to sports, especially when it comes to my first love: baseball. In baseball, there are ‘unwritten rules’, things you don’t do. But every sport has those. Even so, I don’t think getting to the free throw line is on the same level.

And if we’re going to call getting to the free throw line “unethical,” then where exactly do we draw the line? Where’s the outrage over teams like the Celtics launching 40-plus threes a night? I’m not saying those are the same thing aesthetically, but philosophically, it’s the same concept. The math says threes are valuable, so teams take more of them. The rules say free throws are valuable, so players hunt them.

The biggest “perpetrators” of this are the Oklahoma City Thunder. People call Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a ‘free throw merchant’. Two things about this label: 1) SGA’s game has always centered around the midrange. The closer you are to the basket, the more contact is likely. 2) the stats don’t quite back up placing all the blame on the Thunder. First off, the narrative implies that the Thunder are dominating with free throws. The reality is that the Thunder is ranked 17th in the league in free throws attempted (23.2). The Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers actually top this list at 27.5 and 26.8 free throws attempted per game respectively. but no one mentions them as part of the conversation. In fact, the Thunder don’t even crack the top 10 in fouls drawn? Guess who tops the list. Orlando. Doesn’t quite fit the narrative, does it? For that matter, the disparity isn’t as bad as fans and media make it out to be. The ENTIRE NBA is separated by less that 9 free throws a game.

Now, you might be saying, Gilgeous-Alexander is more of the problem. Okay, let’s look at that. Yes, SGA ranks 3rd in FTAs by a player. However, Luka Doncic is number one, shooting 10 free throws a game. Nothing. After SGA at 3, the next Thunder player doesn’t appear on the list until 36 with Chet Holmgren. In the space between SGA at 3 and Holmgren at 36, multiple teams feature two or even three players, including Olando, Minnesota, LA. Houston, Cleveland and Dallas. The math doesn’t math. If you want to center the ethical basketball argument around free throws, there are far more obvious culprits than OKC.

One more quick example: when Miami’s Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards on March 10th, passing Kobe Bryant for the 2nd-highest scoring game in NBA history, many people criticized Adebayo for shooting 43 free throws and making 36 en route to the milestone. Fans and media argued things like, “Kobe only made 18 free throws during his 81-point game”, or “Luka only made 15 when he scored 73.” Okay, well, guys like that operate farther from the basket. Adebayo does shoot three, (he hit 7 that day), but he is a big man by nature. During Wilt’s 100-point game, he made 28 free throws, but he also grabbed 25 rebounds. Offensive rebounds were not a stat that was tracked back then, but it’s a pretty safe bet that a good percentage of them were offensive, thereby creating his own low-percentage shots close to the basket. Do we criticize that?

Look at Dwight Howard’s career-high 45-point game against the Golden State Warriors or Shaq’s 61 points against the Clippers. Both guys grabbed 20+ rebounds, including several offensive. Shaq for instance, grabbed 11 that day. Offensive rebounds lead to easy putbacks. Why doesn’t anyone complain about players like Klay Thompson hitting an NBA record 14 threes in his career high 52-point game. Quick math: That’s 42 of Thompson’s 52 that night. What about Damian Lillard knocking down 13 in a game in 2023? Or Steph Curry? You might say, “Because that’s what they do, what do you want?” Well Adebayo only grabbed 9 rebounds and only took 7 threes. You could argue he had to do more. In order to get to the line, that many times, you have to endure some punishment.

Regardless of how you look at it, you could take ANY of those examples of players “gaming the system”, but it’s just them playing within the rules. Personally, I think most of the outrage about Adebayo’s game was honestly not about free throws, it was about the fact that he passed the late great Kobe Bryant. It’s fine to be upset about that, but can we not tear down Bam’s accomplishment in the process? He played with the rules and scored 83 points.

So, you see? Different and teams (and players) use the rulebook (and their skillsets) differently.

Some teams stretch the floor and bomb away from deep. Some teams attack the rim. Some teams slow the game down. Some teams pressure the officials by forcing contact. Some teams build around spacing, others around size, others around pace.

That’s not unethical. That’s strategy.

Now, does that mean I love the current NBA product from top to bottom? Not exactly.

I still think today’s NBA isn’t physical enough. I think too many teams rely too heavily on the three-point shot. I think defense has taken a backseat too often. I think the league has made life extremely difficult for defenders, especially when offensive players are rewarded for creating contact that the defender had no realistic chance to avoid.

So no, I’m far from a modern basketball apologist.

But I also think we have to be honest about what we’re watching. Foul baiting may be frustrating, but it exists because the league allows it to exist. If the NBA wants less of it, then the NBA needs to change the way it officiates the game.

Until then, this is just another era of basketball operating fully within the bounds of the rulebook.

You don’t have to like it.

But until it’s illegal, it’s part of the game.