Verticality turned the block into a bad way to judge a big man

Once the rules rewarded a defender for going straight up and doing nothing with his arms, the highlight statistic stopped describing the skill.

The interpretation of what a defender is allowed to do at the rim has settled into something fairly clear. Establish position, jump straight up, keep your arms vertical, and contact initiated by the offensive player is generally on the offensive player. Reach across, swing the arms down, come from the side, and it is on you.

That is a good set of principles and it has made the game less of a wrestling match. It has also made blocked shots a poor description of interior defence, and the statistic has not been retired accordingly.

Think about what verticality asks of a defender. Absorb contact from a moving body without moving. Keep hands high and still. Do not swipe. Do not chase the ball. The correct outcome is a missed shot taken over an immovable object, with no block recorded and frequently no foul either. The block, by contrast, requires reaching for the ball, which is the thing the rules are designed to make risky.

So the best play and the countable play have moved apart. A big man who blocks four a night is often a big man who leaves his feet early, gambles, and gets moved. His team may well concede more at the rim than a slower player who never blocks anything and never fouls.

Fouls are the other half of this and they get treated separately when they belong in the same sentence. A shot blocked is worth roughly the value of the possession. A shooting foul on a good free throw shooter costs most of that value straight back, plus foul trouble, plus the cumulative team fouls that put the opponent in the bonus in the fourth quarter. Blocks and fouls are the two outputs of the same decision, and reading one without the other is like reading a striker's goals without knowing how many shots he took.

The player I want is the one whose foul rate is low, whose block rate is unremarkable, and whose opponents shoot badly inside when he is on the floor.

He will never be in a highlight reel, because you cannot cut a montage of a man standing still with his hands up.