Unsporting Behavior In The NBA

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Unsporting behavior is prevalent in every sport. The amount of unsporting behavior can vary from sport. For instance, hockey is known for excessive violence. While, tennis has very little violence. In basketball, sabotage is the most common form of unsporting behavior. Players that sabotage have reasons for their actions. Reasons ranging from winning to expectations. A solution has to be implemented in order to stop sabotaging in the NBA. Sabotage is defined as an intention to hinder another person in order to gain an advantage. In the NBA, these methods are technical fouls and dirty defense. Firstly, technical fouls are achieved by verbally abusing other players or taunting them. For example, Draymond Green consistently has one of the highest …show more content…

These incentives are higher chances of winning, more playing time, and reputation. The biggest incentive of sabotaging is it increases a player’s chances of winning. For example, Bruce Bowen injured Vince Carter. Bowen executed a dangerous closeout causing Carter to land on Bowen’s foot and become injured. Furthermore, Carter is the best player on his team. Therefore, his team’s chances of winning diminished greatly without him. Another incentive for players to sabotage is increased playing time. When a player successfully sabotages, it benefits his team. Look at any sport, when a player plays poorly, the coach will substitute that player. Compared to a player whose performance progresses throughout the season; this player will see an increase in his minutes. As a result, a player known for making a positive impact for his team will get more more minutes from his coach. Reputation is another incentive for players to sabotage. Players engage in unsporting behavior to preserve their reputation. This is an example of a social incentive because players are persuaded to do something because of people’s beliefs. To illustrate, Metta World Peace is known for his reputation of being an aggressive player. In a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, World Peace elbowed James Harden in the head. Harden suffered a concussion as a result. Many people believed the elbow was intentional; while, World Peace described it as a coincidence. With regards to the two types of aggression, people can infer World Peace’s action as impulsive or instrumental. Impulsive aggression can be interpret due to World Peace randomly elbowing Harden. Compared to instrumental, World Peace elbowed Harden for the goal of preserving his aggressive

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