The danger around the Portland star is that in making crucial debates into arguments about basketball, we lose sight of what is really important
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here’s a weird, psychological tension around basketball fouls. Not unlike a trial. A single rubbered heartbeat thumps in our collective throats. In basketball litigation, the verdict is televised and delivered in public by the referee’s whistle. Deni Avdija faced more trials than a career criminal in early January, when he scored 41 points in the Portland Trail Blazers’ win over the Houston Rockets. Twenty-eight came from the field. The other 13 were handed to him at the stripe.
The online response was immediate, echoing the criticism that has followed the Israeli all season: he’s a free-throw merchant. It’s a specific kind of hoops pejorative – not quite cheating, but a kind of outsourcing, farming points out to the refs. After the game, Rockets forward Tari Eason was asked what makes Avdija so difficult to guard. His answer was one word: “Zebras.”
Free throws piss us off because they’re a successful grift, like follow-up emails. And Avdija has made them work this season – he is second in the league in free-throw attempts per game, and third in free-throws made. That production has made him as the frontrunner for the Most Improved Player award and earned his first All-Star reserve role, finishing ahead of LeBron James and Kevin Durant in the second fan-voting returns. The Trail Blazers look poised to make the play-in, which would be their first postseason appearance since 2021.
