I also want make this very clear...I can spell intellect.
Yeah, but can you also spell "pedantic"?
Also I NEVER said I thought the suspensions were fair. In fact I posted that I thought all involved should just have been fined.
My position is that the rules which have clearly stated, clearly enforced and regularly preached to the players and teams have been upheld. Were the players and coaches aware of the rules? It isn't like this is something new that was just instituted this season. Is the rule fair? I would probably vote no.
So far, we have been in agreement on this issue, then. Including the enforcement of the rule as it currently exists.
But did anyone hear Stern's interview? He is right...what factors do you take into account? Playoff game? Does round 3 give the player more leeway than round 2? If happens in the first quarter is it less punishible than the 4th quarter? A tight game vs a blowout? Your (or the media's) favorite team?
But at what point do you suspend a player? When he confornts someone? When he makes grabs another player? When he cocks his fist? When he decks another player?
Okay, you are starting to lose me a bit here. The rule is the rule, and if Stern simply kept his comments to that aspect of what happened, this incident would have blown over by now. But he went out of his way to point out how horrendous the actions of Stoudemire and Diaw were. They were not horrendous. The were just wrong, but not "wrong, wrong, wrong!!!", to paraphrase what Stern said at the time.
Bottom line? It made it way too easy to assert that the League, represented by Stern, treated what Horry did to Nash, which affected the player directly, as less in significance then two players who immediately reacted to a downed teammate and made it sound like
THOSE actions were much worse!
Correctly interpreting the rule and stating that was the reason the players had to be suspended is one thing, but to make it sound worse then the original offense is pooring gas on the fire, IMO.
Is the uproar because it was Amare & Diaw? No one made that uproar a few years ago when it was Artest & Jalen Rose. There was not this much uproar when it cost the Knicks a series and possible title run. Why is this situation so bad that everyone is appalled?
Would it have been different if it had been Burke and Banks? If the situation had been reversed and "dirty" Bowen & Ginobili had been suspended would the media being crying foul?
It is because it appears, from the suspension and the outcome of game five, that Horry's decking of Nash ended up benefitting the team that Horry plays for over the "victimized" team. This is like serving mantra on a silver platter to the media.
