Stop taking charges in the open floor

The full speed charge is a bad trade for the defender's body and a coin flip for the whistle, and both halves are avoidable.

The open floor charge is the most admired play in basketball that I would happily see disappear.

Start with the collision. A half court charge involves a driver moving at maybe half speed into a defender who has been set for a beat. Unpleasant, survivable. A transition charge is a player travelling at close to a full sprint meeting a stationary body, and the stationary body absorbs all of it. Head, tailbone, wrist on landing. The injury reports from these are not exotic sprains. They are concussions and fractures, and a player takes a handful of them a season for a benefit that would need to be enormous to justify the exposure.

The benefit is not enormous. It is a turnover plus a foul on the opponent, so call it a point and a half of swing when it works. When it does not work, and in the open floor it frequently does not, you have given up a layup, a free throw, and a personal foul of your own. The whistle is close to a coin flip because the restricted area rule was written for a half court world and officials are being asked to judge legal guarding position on a play that resolves in a fifth of a second.

There is also a scheme cost nobody mentions. A player setting up for a charge is a player who has stopped defending. He is not contesting, not funnelling, not buying time for the trailers. He has made a binary bet on one whistle, and if he loses it the possession ends immediately rather than merely becoming difficult.

The alternative is unfashionable and works better. Meet the ball high, stay on your feet, angle the driver toward the sideline, and let him finish over a hand while your teammates arrive. You concede some layups. You concede fewer three point plays, you commit fewer fouls, and your best wing is still available in March.

I understand the appeal. The charge is a moral statement, the crowd stands up, the bench erupts, and the coach gets to point at it. Nothing I write will change that. But if a team told me it had banned the transition charge outright, I would assume the coach had done the arithmetic rather than the theatre.