Mixed feelings about possibly signing Reggie Miller

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2966170


The Celtics have reportedly contacted Reggie Miller about a return to the NBA. I always liked Reggie's ability to score points and hit free throws, but I never had that much respect for him as a competitor. He's a flopper who draws fouls when he isn't touched.

Growing up, I would flop against my brother, but that was for a completely different reason. We had no refs, and my brother has been known to throw punches (specifically at me) in tag football. It's not really his fault that he played basketball like it was full contact football, while he was running around and getting in shape, I was working on my handle and refining skills. The result was he had to use his physicality every time I got the ball.

At that point I had two choices to continue playing, I could eventually let him snap my spine with a spinning backhand swipe at the ball that wasn't going to be close to the ball, or I hit the dirt before I had to have wheelchair ramps installed. So every time he ran into me, I let him throw me off balance until he learned to stop running full speed into the guy dribbling the ball.

I never got a single free throw out of being pushed to the ground. I tried to never call the foul, instead letting a third party see what happened and explain it to him. He was never really out to physically hurt me (that often) but if he killed me incidentally, he probably would have explained that I died because I couldn't suck it up and play dead.

Reggie Miller flops in the way that John Stockton flopped. Every chance he had to get a call, he would put himself into a bad position, like turning over the ball, then he would throw himself under the defender and throw his arms in the air. In fact, my favorite memory of watching Stockton play came in the Finals when Jordan posted him up, Stockton threw himself under Jordan's wheels and tried to beg the ref for a call. The ref just looked at him as if to say, "I know your Stockton, and you've been allowed to bend the rules your entire career, but Jordan pays the league's bills."

Reggie Miller often runs through traffic under the hoop, waits for the ref to look away and then jumps on a player, swings his arms wildly to get the ref to look, and hits the ground. It got so bad the one ref refused to call a play where he was fouled so hard, he had to have a bandage stop the bleeding from the side of his head. Good times.

It's difficult for me to compare that Reggie Miller to the one who bombed the Knicks in that magic MSG night. I'm going to have a tough time rooting for a flopper (consider soccer's popularity in America). I hope Reggie can come in here and hit his open shots. We should be good enough that we won't need flops to get out of the East. I wonder if that corrupt ref ever reffed any Miller games.