Posted: May 16, 2007, 6:25 pm
Those states are all the same to me. May as well just combine them together and call the new state Cornholio.Zamtuk wrote:land of the potatoe? (nice one dan quayle)
thats idaho dumbass.
Those states are all the same to me. May as well just combine them together and call the new state Cornholio.Zamtuk wrote:land of the potatoe? (nice one dan quayle)
thats idaho dumbass.
My argument is: The Spurs are in the wrong far moreso than the Suns. Thus, a fair punishment would punish the Spurs more than the Suns.Syl wrote:You say that it's unfair to enforce the rule in this situation, and from what I see of your explanation, it sounds like it's because the Spurs have been playing rougher than teams usually do? I don't feel that warrants a pass and makes the Suns' suspensions unfair. If you want to say that more Spurs should be punished in addition to Horry, I won't disagree with that. Bruce Bowen should be playing in a roller derby somewhere, not the NBA.
Wait really? LameZam wrote:you can't see my avatar anyways. we've had this discussion before.
Broken avatars suck but VeeshanVault's broken VV transfer system has cost me millions in potential VV's from bets off people. My last windfall came way back during the presidential elections when I won the electoral vote challenge.Sueven wrote:Wait really? LameZam wrote:you can't see my avatar anyways. we've had this discussion before.
"We have the most powerful microscopes and telescopes in the world in Arizona, (and) you could use those instruments and not find a shred of fairness or common sense in that decision," D'Antoni said after the Suns' morning shooting session. "That's kind of how it feels. It really benefits no one. It doesn't benefit us, obviously. It doesn't benefit the Spurs. It doesn't benefit the fans. It doesn't benefit the NBA.
"I kind of use that as a guideline. It if doesn't benefit no one, maybe you got to look into the decision."
Suspended disbelief
NBA in the wrong disciplining Suns based on rigid rule
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 11:21AM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 1:44PM
When Phoenix's Boris Diaw leaped off the bench after teammate Steve Nash was hip-checked to the floor in the waning seconds of Game 4 on Monday night, he was more likely to be delivering croissants than seeking retribution against San Antonio's Robert Horry, the player who committed the foul on Nash.
That's why the suspensions of Diaw and teammate Amaré Stoudemire for Game 5 on Wednesday night are, in a word, wrong.
NBA rules state that in the event of an on-court incident, "all players not participating in the game must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench. Violators will be suspended, without pay, for a minimum of one game and fined $35,000." The rule was instituted after a bench-clearing brawl between the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls in the 1994 playoffs and cemented during the NBA's darkest hour, the 2004 brawl in the Palace of Auburn Hills in which Indiana Pacers players went into the stands. Its intention is to prevent an already bad situation from escalating.
This situation in San Antonio, however, wasn't even close to that one. Nor was it close to what happened even in the Denver Nuggets-New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden last December, when a few players came off the bench after a small fracas started under the basket. Every rule must be enforced with common sense, and this is one that called for a dose of that from the league office.
Here's the sequence of events: Horry hip-checks Nash almost directly in front of the Phoenix bench. Nash could've been seriously hurt. Stoudemire and Diaw rise in protest. They don't come near Horry. They don't cock a fist. Diaw, a confirmed pacifist, takes a few steps and then seems to think, "Ah, hell with it," and retreats. There was no threat of escalation, no exchange of physicality at all, except for the Suns' Raja Bell shoving Horry, an act that drew a technical foul. A careful review of the tape -- and I have no doubt that the NBA reviewed it countless times -- reveals that there was no threat of this thing turning into a donnybrook.
The NBA deserves much credit for going to great lengths to reduce the violence in its game. But rules with no wriggle room, rules with no gray area at all, do not serve the game.
The net result of this incident is that Horry commits a dirty play and the Suns are the team most severely penalized, having to play Game 5 without their leading scorer in Stoudemire and a top reserve in Diaw.
It isn't fair.
"It's not a matter of fairness," said Stu Jackson, the league's enforcement czar. "It's a matter of correctness."
Now, there's a statement that will go down in jurisprudence history.
1. Let's say you're one of the best seven players on the Phoenix Suns. You love Nash -- he's your emotional leader, your meal ticket to the Finals, the ideal teammate and someone who makes you happy to play basketball every day for a living. He's killing himself to win a championship. His nose was split open in Game 1. His back bothers him to the point that he has to lie down on the sidelines during breaks. He's battling a real cheap-shot artist (Bruce Bowen) who's trying to shove and trip him on every play. But he keeps coming and coming, and eventually everyone follows suit. Just as things were falling apart in Game 4 and you were staring at the end of your season, he willed you back into the game and saved the day.
Suddenly, he gets body-checked into a press table for no real reason on an especially cheap play. You're standing 20 feet away. Instinctively, you run a few steps toward the guy who did it -- after all, your meal ticket is lying on the court in a crumpled heap -- before remembering that you can't leave your bench. So you go back and watch everything else unfold from there. Twenty-four hours later, you get suspended for Game 5 because your instincts as a teammate kicked in for 1.7 seconds.
Think about how dumb this is. What kind of league penalizes someone for reacting like a good teammate after his franchise player just got decked? Imagine you're playing pickup at a park, you're leading a game 10-3, your buddy is driving for the winning layup, and some stranger clotheslines your buddy from behind and knocks him into the metal pole. Do you react? Do you take a couple of steps toward him? I bet you do. For the NBA to pretend it can create a fairy-tale league in which these reactions can be removed from somebody's DNA -- almost like a chemical castration -- I mean, how stupid is that?
2. One of the running debates of these playoffs: Is Bruce Bowen a cheap player? I love the fact that anyone's actually debating this -- if your answer is "no" or your answer is "I'm not sure," then you've obviously never played basketball in your life. Bruce Bowen is a cheap player. There's no debate. He's not some clumsy power forward who can't stay out of his own way (like Mark Madsen), or even some uncoordinated center who can't remember to keep his elbows near his body (like Shawn Bradley). He's a world-class athlete who has complete control over every inch of his body at all times.
As anyone who's ever played basketball knows, with the exception of clumsy people who probably shouldn't be playing in the first place, there are no accidents on a basketball court. Your feet just don't coincidentally land under someone else's feet as he's shooting a jump shot, and you don't just coincidentally kick someone in the calf as he's going up for a layup or dunk. These things don't just happen. They don't. The only room for error happens when someone's trying to block a fast-break layup or dunk, takes a roundhouse swipe and inadvertently ends up hitting his opponent's head instead of the ball (like we saw with Matt Barnes when he clocked Matt Harpring Tuesday night). When Jason Richardson nails Memo Okur at the end of Game 4 because he's pissed that Okur was driving at the tail end of a guaranteed win, or Baron Davis elbows Derek Fisher in the same game because he's ticked that the Warriors blew a winnable game ... those aren't accidents.
Anyway, for a world-class athlete with exceptional coordination, Bruce Bowen sure seems to have a lot of "accidents." They happen because of his style -- best described as "organized, physical chaos" -- and because he deliberately bends the rules for a competitive advantage. When he was breaking into the league, Bowen played for the Celtics from 1997-99, back when I was living in Boston and attending nearly every game. He was just as good defensively back then -- quicker, even -- but couldn't shoot to save his life (41 percent his first season, 28 percent his second season), and more importantly, he was a soft player. Opponents pushed him around, refs didn't give him any respect, even his own coach (Rick Pitino) screamed at him constantly. Since Bowen seemed like such a nice guy, and he tried so freaking hard, everyone who attended those games found themselves feeling sorry for him. As gifted as he was defensively, I never imagined him making it because of his dreadful shooting and beaten-down, little-kid-getting-picked-on-in-class demeanor. He just needed one person to believe in him ... and Rick Pitino wasn't it.
When he finally made it in San Antonio a few years later, I wasn't shocked because there's always a place in the NBA for someone with a specific skill (whether it's long-range shooting, rebounding, defense or whatever), but I was shocked by his much-improved 3-point shooting (44 percent in 2003?????) and newfound intensity. Watching him hound offensive players was like watching Beecher torment Schillinger after he finally snapped in "Oz." Where did this come from??? Suddenly, Bowen was willing to bend the rules, trip guys as they landed after jump shots, bump them when they weren't looking and basically do anything to get into their heads, all while doing the whole "Wait, I'm in trouble??? What????" routine and pretending to be shocked anytime anyone threatened to kick his ass. Which happens every couple of months. There's no doubt in my mind -- absolutely none -- that at some point between Boston and San Antonio, Bruce Bowen decided to do whatever it took to remain in the NBA. Even if it meant becoming a dirty player.
Now here's where the NBA failed: For a league that professes to be concerned about dirty play and any situation that could lead to a brawl, the league has curiously looked the other way with the single dirtiest player in the league. If he pulled this crap on a pickup court, or even in college intramurals, somebody would have punched Bowen in the face and broken his jaw. In the NBA? He gets to keep doing his thing and putting other players in danger. In the Phoenix series alone, he tripped Stoudemire from behind on a dunk in Game 2, kneed Nash in the groin in Game 3 and tried to knock Nash off balance in Game 5 as they were running back upcourt (causing a frustrated Nash to elbow him in the chops). The league penalizes two Phoenix stars for instinctively running toward an injured teammate, but they don't penalize a perpetually dirty player who's eventually going to trigger an ugly brawl before the end of his career?
How the hell does that make sense?
In the current NBA, you can't commit a hard foul, you can't trash-talk another player, you can't pull your shirt up after a roof-raising dunk, you can't protect a teammate who just got knocked into a press table. We have these rules -- I'm guessing -- because any of those actions can lead to an ugly fight. Ever since the Bad Boys Pistons and Riley's Knicks tried to turn the NBA into the WWF in the late '80s and early '90s, nearly every rule change was created to prevent ugly incidents, even if some of those rule changes compromised the competitiveness of the league in the process. Well, if that's the case, how could the league allow Bruce Bowen to keep running amok with no repercussions? Can you think of a better candidate to trigger an ugly fight some day than Bruce Bowen? Why do they allow him to keep doing what he's doing? Seriously, does the NBA have a clue?
For all the people that are claiming to know what is stated in rule 12, 99% haven't a clue what it says. It is not a clear rule as written and the NBA EASILY could have said they stayed in the immediate vicinity and not had this drama, if San Antonio wins this I am gonna fucking puke.. During an altercation, all players not participating in the game must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench. Violators will be suspended, without pay, for a minimum of one game and fined up to $35,000. The suspensions will commence prior to the start of their next game. A team must have a minimum of eight players dressed and ready to play in every game. If five or more players leave the bench, the players will serve their suspensions alphabetically, according to the first letters of their last name. If seven bench players are suspended (assuming no participants are included), four of them would be suspended for the first game following the altercation. The remaining three would be suspended for the second game following the altercation.
NBA is one fucked up league. Way to take everything into consideration."I know for a fact that Boris Diaw would never, ever be in a fight," D'Antoni said. "I know that. To suspend him for going to Steve Nash, for looking and curiosity, that's a little harsh."
The Frenchman Diaw said he could not remember being in a fight, even as a kid.
"I've been in the NBA for four years and I haven't got even one technical foul," Diaw said. "I was just looking to see that Steve was all right."
He's not beloved! I think he's a pretty good writer, and I usually read his columns, but I often times think he's a bit of a douchebag.Winnow wrote:Maybe Sylvus will listen to his belived Bill Simmon's comments:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ortCat=nba
All suspension punishments that are ever handed out are done based on individual actions. They don't take into account that in yesterday's game, Bruce Bowen elbowed your 4th best shot-blocker in the scrotum. Or that in the game 2 days ago, Tony Parker stuck his finger up someone else's butthole. Or that throughout a series, one team has been pushing the rules and not getting called for it. If you want to say that the refs have not appropriately called enough fouls on the Spurs throughout the series, I will not argue that. Hell, they never have, and evidence can be seen on Tim Duncan's face every time a call doesn't go his way. But history isn't taken into account, and I don't feel it should be, when an incident occurs and multiple people are punished for it.Sueven wrote:My argument is: The Spurs are in the wrong far moreso than the Suns. Thus, a fair punishment would punish the Spurs more than the Suns.
He proably did embelish the landing a little bit.. but getting clotheslined by someone 7 inches talle and 60 lbs heavier while running full tilt up the court is probably gonna be a little bit painful.Boogahz wrote:After watching replays last night, Nash should have been on the football pitch. He would fit in very well there.
Amare and Diaw were involved less in the play than the guys on the court.In the incident the other night, 4 people were involved, and 4 people were punished, based on the existing rules that the players knew when they went into that game.
Remember that he was protecting the ball so had less of a chance to break his fall. After last year when the Lakers man-raped Nash to get the ball without a call in the final seconds of a game, he had to hold onto the ball tightly while being slammed out of bounds because who knows if the refs would call a foul.Boogahz wrote:After watching replays last night, Nash should have been on the football pitch. He would fit in very well there.
He was commenting that he was originally going to just take the charge until he saw how fast Nash was moving (which would have been reasonable), but then decided to nudge him (his words, not mine). He did not appear to be attempting to body check him as bad as you (and some reporters) attempt to play it off as. This was with multiple replays and angles. He was justly suspended regardless of Nash's flop being up to par with his normal acting abilities.Winnow wrote:Remember that he was protecting the ball so had less of a chance to break his fall. After last year when the Lakers man-raped Nash to get the ball without a call in the final seconds of a game, he had to hold onto the ball tightly while being slammed out of bounds because who knows if the refs would call a foul.Boogahz wrote:After watching replays last night, Nash should have been on the football pitch. He would fit in very well there.
If you can't see Horry digging in and lowering his shoulder, especially in slow motion during replays, you're blind.
I think it's quite clear that the message they are trying to send is "Don't get up off the bench during an altercation. For any reason."miir wrote:What message are they tying to send here?
Goddamnit. Pick your avatar.Winnow wrote:Leonaerd: yet to be seen. So far, he's not in compliance for Chicago/Detroit series going more than 5!
Winnow? Yes? My title will be "<3 Zen Vision M" for an additional two weeks if The Pistons lose. If they win, however, you sport the Pistons logo.Sylvus wrote:Why don't you double-or-nothing him that the Pistons win Game 6 in Chicago tonight?
Let me think on it. It's hard to bet on the NBA atm with all the dirty play and scam rules needing to be factored in. In the meantime, here you go:Leonaerd wrote:Winnow? Yes? My title will be "<3 Zen Vision M" for an additional two weeks if The Pistons lose. If they win, however, you sport the Pistons logo.Sylvus wrote:Why don't you double-or-nothing him that the Pistons win Game 6 in Chicago tonight?
Deal?
Dude, all he needed to do was stick his arm out. He body checked him instead.Boogahz wrote: He was commenting that he was originally going to just take the charge until he saw how fast Nash was moving (which would have been reasonable), but then decided to nudge him (his words, not mine). He did not appear to be attempting to body check him as bad as you (and some reporters) attempt to play it off as. This was with multiple replays and angles. He was justly suspended regardless of Nash's flop being up to par with his normal acting abilities.
I was going to say that we need the opinion of a bystander in this matter. Who better than a Dallas fan to give a take on this? Where's Cart?Leonaerd wrote:Afterwards I'm going to put up a video of Nash getting decked by Horry as my avatar.
Winnow, do you see any parallels between the suspensions doled out and Cartalas' banning? Rules / regulations that sound better on paper than when they're actually enforced comes to mind...
I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?Winnow wrote:I was going to say that we need the opinion of a bystander in this matter. Who better than a Dallas fan to give a take on this? Where's Cart?
Avatar looks good Leonaerd! I'll give you a chance to get back at me soon.
Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!miir wrote: I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?
I was on board with the suspensions. It's been a chippy series so all the players have microscopes on them and need to watch themselves.Leonaerd wrote:
Afterwards I'm going to put up a video of Nash getting decked by Horry as my avatar.
Winnow, do you see any parallels between the suspensions doled out and Cartalas' banning? Rules / regulations that sound better on paper than when they're actually enforced comes to mind...
I was going to say that we need the opinion of a bystander in this matter. Who better than a Dallas fan to give a take on this? Where's Cart?
Well the fact that I'm actually agreeing with you on something for once has to count for something!Winnow wrote:Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!miir wrote: I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?
...but Nash IS Canadian!miir wrote:Well the fact that I'm actually agreeing with you on something for once has to count for something!Winnow wrote:Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!miir wrote: I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?
REALLY?????Boogahz wrote:...but Nash IS Canadian!miir wrote:Well the fact that I'm actually agreeing with you on something for once has to count for something!Winnow wrote:Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!miir wrote: I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?
miir wrote:REALLY?????Boogahz wrote:...but Nash IS Canadian!miir wrote:Well the fact that I'm actually agreeing with you on something for once has to count for something!Winnow wrote:Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!miir wrote: I'm a bystander... or am I disqualified because I'm Canadian?
Boogahz wrote:miir wrote:REALLY?????Boogahz wrote:...but Nash IS Canadian!miir wrote:Well the fact that I'm actually agreeing with you on something for once has to count for something!Winnow wrote:
Canada's sports personality of the year for two years running being involved disqualifies you! That, and one of the Collangelo brothers managing the Raptors. Too many Suns connections!
no
He's been adopted by Winnow, which makes him American
Niiiiice.Zamtuk wrote:I've got clubhouse passes to the Memorial at Muirfield in a couple weeks. Soon to be upgraded to press passes!
The Spurs also didn't take care of business in game four (well I guess they did with Cheapshot Bob)...that's why the series is best of seven...and it should have went seven.Kelshara wrote:The Suns lost Game 1 at home. They didn't take care of their business. That said, Nash is am amazing player and so is Amare (although I can't stand him as a person). Oh yeah, and Nash should SO have been T'ed up when he was bitching up a storm heh.
And they also won two games with Amare and Diaw in the lineup. The difference in talent between the two teams isn't big enough to take away two main players from the Suns roster for a game.Sylvus wrote:Interestingly enough, the Suns lost by more with Amare and Diaw in the lineup for game 6 than they did during the suspension game.
I'm just sayin'.