First, a quiz. What do these three Vines have in common?
Everything is a travel: Highlight Truthers are coming after your favorite NBA plays
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
1.
2.
3.
There are two correct answers.
Correct answer 1: They are all cool basketball plays.
@SBNationGIF @zoowithroy nice little travel before he throws it off the backboard
— Alex Hunt (@Alex_Hunt44) February 10, 2015 @SBNationNBA and 3 steps at the end
— Dan Richards (@drichSLC) January 23, 2015 @SBNation Travel c'mon now
— Matt Owen (@mattaowen) January 20, 2015 These people are Highlight Truthers (Deadspin commenters get credit for this term, I think). Where most everyone enjoys an exciting play, Highlight Truthers see a miscarriage of justice and feel compelled to point it out. There is a subset of Truthering that amounts to “this play is overrated” -- like the proclamations of the despicable Rim-Touching Cult -- but many Highlight Truthers are vigilante rule enforcers.
NBA Highlight Truthers are most concerned with traveling violations. The travel is a touchstone of NBA hatred: A lot of people complain the league suffers by not calling it enough. Not as much as before? Not as much as in amateur leagues? Just flat-out not enough BECAUSE WE NEED MORE TRAVELS DAMMIT PRO SPORTS SHOULD BE ABOUT PAINSTAKINGLY PRECISE RULE ENFORCEMENT, NOT FUN AND ENTERTAINMENT? I really don’t know. It’s a difficult beef to comprehend, but it’s out there.
Traveling is also imperfectly defined and damn near impossible for a referee to judge in real time, so it lends itself to amateur interpretation. The NFL equivalent is holding or pass interference -- infractions that happen constantly, but are difficult to call with the naked eye -- and Highlight Truthers pop up in favor of those subjective calls, too. In football, though, such plays are discrete and usually reviewable. Not the case in the NBA. Travels are most likely to go uncalled, and a few are called incorrectly because basketball officials don't have the benefit of replaying footsteps.
The Greek Freak
But we do! Highlight Truthering and the platform of the they-don’t-call-enough-dang-travels set are bolstered not by the behavior of NBA players or refs, but by technology. Where an exciting play used to appear once -- when it occurred -- or maybe just a few more times in replays and shows like SportsCenter, we now have GIFs and Vines. You could watch Giannis Antetokounmpo run the floor and finish majestically (or travel, because the NBA is an unregulated sin haven) over and over continuously for the rest of your life without having seen the play when it happened. There’s no “you had to be there.”
And, like a movie quote or a news sound bite, the highlight can live and accumulate meaning outside its original context, except utterly without harm. Within the bounds of the highlight, I don’t care that the dunker shot 2-15 that night and ended up losing the game and the guy he’s dunking on deserves credit for making a good play on the ball. I also don’t care if he traveled the same way I don’t care if a protagonist in a car chase ran a red light. There is a grander story that matters, but this story begins and ends in six seconds, and when you’re dealing with a chunk that small, the story’s meaning is up to you. There don’t have to be rules.
So hey, why not appreciate something obviously awesome for its awe? Let a highlight be a highlight. Watch it over and over and find something new to enjoy each time. Or take the opportunity to point out questionable uncalled travels. Up to you.
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