I want to begin by explaining my reasoning for deciding to write an article on the NBA's system for evaluating dirty plays that occur during live games in the NBA. Part of the reason as to why I feel this article is necessary is because over time, there has been progressively more and more built up aggression towards specific players that the majority of fans like label as "dirty." When I say "dirty," I am not in any way referring to a player that is "scrappy" or is "hard-nosed" like one of my favorite players in the NBA, Patrick Beverly. When I say "dirty," I'm specifically referring to players who have malicious intent to harm another player.

I mean "dirty" as in someone who purposefully throws their weight or an "unknown" blind jab at another player's body to create some form of short term or long term injury. Unfortunately there's more than a few of these incidents that take place during the 82-game NBA season. Hopefully, though with this article, if I become famous one day and all my Odyssey articles are shared more; the NBA will stumble on this article and consider actually reviewing their dated policies and consequences on dirty plays. Anyways; another day perhaps.

To follow my long terms dream of becoming a famous NBA analyst someday, I will continue by going in-depth on how the foul system works in the NBA. There are a total of three different fouls that can be called during a regular 48-minute basketball game in the NBA or a 40 minute college basketball game.

The three fouls are known as: personal fouls (most common type) which are light forms of personal contact between two players; flagrant fouls, which are violent player contacts where the ref believes the player was not directly going after the ball; and a technical foul, which is a foul completely unrelated to physical contact during a game. With flagrant fouls there are two groups: flagrant one and flagrant two fouls.

Flagrant one fouls are determined to be unnecessary contact, while flagrant two fouls are determined to be unnecessary and excessive contact. If you as the reader understand this very quick description of the foul system in basketball then you're set to actually understand mildly what's going on in a basketball game.

I wanted to go over the foul system in hopes of being more persuasive when I actually critique the NBA's actions on particular hard fouls that have occurred during games where players seemingly have intentionally tried to injure other players.

What's to follow is a list of two instances where it seemed clear from a majority of the people watching the replay that a player had intentions that went beyond getting the ball. Intentions that could be agreed on by most viewers except for people with experience who actually determine the consequences of a player's actions, A.K.A. the NBA.

Anyways, first example: Oklahoma City Thunder vs Golden State Warriors 2/24/18 (Oracle Arena).

In this instance, OKC's starting point guard (guy who brings ball up the court) was going for a driving layup while running through a congested middle lane. In the middle lane to the rim, Golden State had three defenders ready to try and contest Westbrook's floater. When Westbrook attempted the layup, he missed and then went for the offensive rebound.

In the midst of the congestion, Westbrook landed on one foot and lost his balance and fell onto the floor. Though Westbrook fell, Golden State Warrior's Center Zaza Pachulia landed perfectly on both his feet without any loss of balance. Exactly 2.4 seconds on the replay went by before we see Zaza out of no where "accidentally" lose his balance and fall directly onto Westbrook's right leg. The right leg in this partially extended state, is extremely fragile and can easily get injured if enough weight lands on it at a certain angle.

Now, the argument can be made that Zaza, like a lot of big men, is just clumsy and that Golden State Warrior's Small Forward Nick Young's leg was stuck between his legs. That is a logical explanation; however, this is not the first controversy surrounding a potential "dirty" play committed by Zaza Pachulia. Another instance of Zaza committing potentially committing another dirty play was during the San Antonio Spurs vs Golden State Warriors Game (5/14/17).

In this instance, San Antonio Spur's Small Forward Kawhi Leonard went for a mid-range jump shot. Zaza, as Kawhi was shooting the ball, attempted to contest the shot, and when the shot went through, Zaza, instead of sprinting back to the other side to get back on offense, took two steps forward and put his foot right under the spot Kawhi's left foot was going to land. Kawhi ended up injuring his left ankle. Warriors ended up winning that game (113-111) for any reader that is curious.

With these two specific examples, I am in no way trying to put the label of "dirty" onto Zaza Pachulia's reputation as a basketball player. Instead, what I'm trying to bring up is that when you have a lot of big men who weigh a lot trying to play 48 minutes of basketball, injuries happen. For the most part, these injuries are by accident; however, there are few occasions where the injuries seem to have a little malicious intent to them. It's something that naturally goes unaddressed for the most part because the NBA is a business, but it gets ridiculous when these injuries can affect a player's career permanently.

Over the course of the recent NBA seasons, there has been an increase in the number of flagrant or "hard" fouls. The fine total from flagrant fouls has increased from $1,618,288.00 in 2012 to $3,784,240.00 in 2014. Fines just haven't gotten 200% more expensive. There have been more "flagrant" fouls, and as an avid NBA fan who loves watching basketball and is more hurt over the Houston Rocket's losing than anything else, this is an important matter of discussion to me.

I truly think the NBA should take a closer look at those "seemingly grey" replays and develop an overly detailed rulebook that is more updated than the current 2008 rulebook the NBA bases their judgments on. Every NBA player that plays in a basketball game is working. They're making a living for themselves and work hard to maintain that living.

The NBA needs to update their rulebook so that players don't have to be concerned with losing the rest of their career in the next game. Not only for the health of the players and their families, but for me who almost passes out from emotion every time a Houston Rocket's player falls to the ground.