..is frankly a load of horseshit.
I'm speaking of the now infamous suspension of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. The two Phoenix Suns players were each suspended one game for leaving the bench after Cheap Shot Rob delivered a body check to Steve Nash:
The NBA has a (supposedly) very strict rule on players leaving the bench during a fracas. Plain and simple: if you leave the bench, your ass is going to sit the next game. This rule is applied regardless of a players intention, whether they're off the bench to see if their player is OK or whether they plan on giving a collective Claw to the entire opposing team.
Their are several problems with the NBA's decision in this case.
First, apparent from looking at the video, Stoudemire and Diaw never made it anywhere near the other team before they were caught and escorted back to their bench. No harm, no foul - especially since the player who was manhandled was Steve Nash, two-time MVP not to mention the heart and soul of the Suns team. Which leads me to the second problem.
Second, and more important in my view is the complete failure of the NBA front office to protect Steve Nash throughout this entire series. This failure directly led to the emptying of the Suns bench. In this series, Nash has been (in order): given stitches in his nose because of a headbutt by Tony Parker, kneed in the groin by Bruce Bowen, and finally flagrantly flung from the sideline into the scorers table. The second offense was investigated by the league and no further action was taken. Once again, let's go to the tape:
Very subtle, no? You may argue that it was inadvertent. Could be - however, the player in question is Bruce Bowen. That in itself should warn you that his ballcrusher move was indeed intentional. Bowen wouldn't be Bowen if he didn't practice his wares with a subtle hand. It's like saying that a master thief couldn't have stolen something because he didn't leave any prints behind. Of course he didn't -that's why he's a master. So the failure of the league to send a clear signal to Bowen that henceforth his tactics would be severely punished must have sent a correspondingly clear signal to the Suns: going forward, if the NBA won't protect Nash then we have to. Hence, Amare and Boris on the floor.
Third, the behavior of Tim Duncan clearly leaving the bench in the 2nd quarter was never fully addressed by Stu Jackson. As seen below, after Francisco Elson dunked the ball he fell over the top of James Jones. Duncan comes wandering out onto the court until Bowen (of all people) can herd him back to the bench. According to Stu Jackson,
"Both players got up," Jackson said. "There was no altercation, and they ran down to the other end of the court."This is a factually correct statement, but it completely ignores the possibility that Tim Duncan may have been looking to start an altercation where one didn't exist. Is it likely he was looking to brawl? No - but that is why the rule was put in place - to remove any ambiguities about a players intention. This strict reading of the rule book is why Diaw and Stoudemire were suspended, and following this same logic leads to the conclusion that Bowen and Duncan should also be suspended. Posing a hypothetical, suppose Raja Bell had been in that corner when Duncan came off the court. Chances are very high that Bell (or any Sun in the corner for that matter) would have taken his move as an escalation, possibly leading to a brawl. Looking at it from a different angle, using the NBA's own corrupted logic, while Duncan was on the floor Boris Diaw could have turned around and slapped him in the face, thereby causing an altercation and the automatic suspension of both him and Duncan. This would basically be a Diaw-for-Duncan tradeoff, one that any Sun would take in a heartbeat. Such is the state of discipline in the NBA, where teams can make morally dubious tactical decisions that the league will then reward.
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