You've Got to be Kidding Me
So the NBA decided to suspend Robert Horry for two games and Amare Stoudemire & Boris Diaw for one game each. Umm, ok. First some back story on why this bothers me…
Kobe Bryant gets suspended this season not once, but twice, for what the league office called an “unnatural basketball act”. Fast forward to the playoffs where Bruce Bowen commits two legitimately “unnatural basketball acts” by stepping on Amare’s achilles and kneeing Steve Nash in the yeah boys…and nothing.
Continuing on in the post season Baron Davis gets away clean after a blatantly cheap elbow to Derek Fisher’s head away from the ball. Then a minute later in the same game Jason Richardson drops Memo Okur with a clothesline. Yet somehow J-Rich avoids suspension too. I can't forget to mention Kirk Hinrich, who threw a left handed jab to Flip Murray's groin...crickets...tumbleweeds.
My frustration level is reading peak levels because I can’t tell the difference between what Horry and Richardson did in the least. Robert supposedly got the second game for his forearm to Raja Bell (who of course wasn't reprimanded at all) in the fracas afterwards. WHAT?!?! I fail to see how in the hell Horry’s defensive forearm (take a look at it and tell me it wasn’t self defense) is any different from Baron’s elbow?
If my point isn’t clear, I’m upset with Commissioner David Stern and league disciplinarian Stu Jackson over their inconsistencies when it comes to what warrants a suspension and what doesn’t. Maybe this is revisionist history, but I always felt like I knew who was going to get what post mortem. After this year though, I can honestly say I have no clue…and I don’t see how anyone else can say they do.
The icing on the cake for me is that the image conscious NBA just opened themselves up for a double barrel assault of conspiracy theories while at the same time ruining the pseudo NBA Finals. I’ll even get the party started by suggesting that Horry was given two games so that San Antonio is at a disadvantage for Game 6 when Phoenix is back at full strength.
This whole thing just pisses me off royally because the NBA can’t seem to get out its own way. Who in their right mind was going to complain about Amare, Boris & Robert all being allowed to finish the series? Especially when Bowen, Davis, Richardson & Hinrich were already shown leniency for similar actions.
(By the way, I'm not even mentioning that Bowen (again) and Tim Duncan were spared after briefly leaving the bench when Francisco Elson and James Jones *almost* got into it. While Stu conceded that Duncan should not have been on the playing court, no suspension was dished out because the Elson/Jones tangle was deemed not to be an “altercation”.)
Ah, whatever…
Kobe Bryant gets suspended this season not once, but twice, for what the league office called an “unnatural basketball act”. Fast forward to the playoffs where Bruce Bowen commits two legitimately “unnatural basketball acts” by stepping on Amare’s achilles and kneeing Steve Nash in the yeah boys…and nothing.
Continuing on in the post season Baron Davis gets away clean after a blatantly cheap elbow to Derek Fisher’s head away from the ball. Then a minute later in the same game Jason Richardson drops Memo Okur with a clothesline. Yet somehow J-Rich avoids suspension too. I can't forget to mention Kirk Hinrich, who threw a left handed jab to Flip Murray's groin...crickets...tumbleweeds.
My frustration level is reading peak levels because I can’t tell the difference between what Horry and Richardson did in the least. Robert supposedly got the second game for his forearm to Raja Bell (who of course wasn't reprimanded at all) in the fracas afterwards. WHAT?!?! I fail to see how in the hell Horry’s defensive forearm (take a look at it and tell me it wasn’t self defense) is any different from Baron’s elbow?
If my point isn’t clear, I’m upset with Commissioner David Stern and league disciplinarian Stu Jackson over their inconsistencies when it comes to what warrants a suspension and what doesn’t. Maybe this is revisionist history, but I always felt like I knew who was going to get what post mortem. After this year though, I can honestly say I have no clue…and I don’t see how anyone else can say they do.
The icing on the cake for me is that the image conscious NBA just opened themselves up for a double barrel assault of conspiracy theories while at the same time ruining the pseudo NBA Finals. I’ll even get the party started by suggesting that Horry was given two games so that San Antonio is at a disadvantage for Game 6 when Phoenix is back at full strength.
This whole thing just pisses me off royally because the NBA can’t seem to get out its own way. Who in their right mind was going to complain about Amare, Boris & Robert all being allowed to finish the series? Especially when Bowen, Davis, Richardson & Hinrich were already shown leniency for similar actions.
(By the way, I'm not even mentioning that Bowen (again) and Tim Duncan were spared after briefly leaving the bench when Francisco Elson and James Jones *almost* got into it. While Stu conceded that Duncan should not have been on the playing court, no suspension was dished out because the Elson/Jones tangle was deemed not to be an “altercation”.)
Ah, whatever…
posted by D$ at 7:49 PM
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