Mr.Bottomtooth
11-10-2006, 07:52 PM
Stern needs to loosen up on new rule
Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 hours ago
Last Tuesday the citizens of this great nation went to the polls and repudiated monolithic one-party rule.
It must have sent a chill down David Stern's spine.
The commish doesn't want his minions to get any ideas, lest he need to violently wield his iron scepter to remind them who is king. Mr. Stern would very much like to limit uprisings in the NBA to guys dunking in traffic. Remember when Jeff Van Gundy had the temerity to suggest that there was a real problem with the way the game was being officiated? He looked like he'd been water-boarded for several hours before his apology.
But what if the world's greatest athletes decided they'd had enough of being bullied? Enough of being told how to dress. Enough of being told to shut up. Enough of being told to forsake their second amendment rights. What if the NBA Players Association decided enough was enough and demanded a new vision (and a new visionary) for the league?
Just the thought is enough to make Stern look for somebody to fine, suspend, reprimand or threaten with a lifetime ban from the casino where he never loses.
Stern wants a league of obedient serfs who will sprint up and down the court until their lungs burn, play D until their quads ache and stay silent when Bennett Salvatore undoes all their hard work with an errant whistle.
I don't know when David Stern last played hoops, but I'd encourage him to invite some of his fellow multi-millionaires over to the house for a little game of 3-on-3. Then when it gets to point-point and one of his buddies makes a garbage call I'd like to see him remain stone silent and award the cheater the ball at the top of the key. It doesn't happen. You know why? Because you want to win. And when you really want to win, you react to an unjust call with emotion. The commish should be careful what he wishes for. When players stop reacting as if they really care, it might be because they no longer do. Do you remember the pre-Bird-Magic NBA? Remember all those possessions in the late '70s when it was unclear just how much a team cared about getting a stop?
The game has gotten so much more physically demanding, so much more intense and so much better. Bruce Bowen plays desperate denial defense 25 feet from the basket. Andres Nocioni pursues loose balls like his life depends on it. Ben Wallace protects the rim like it was his family. These are all good things. But they create a constant and necessary level of aggression that cannot be switched off when the whistle blows. You can't expect your team to defend like rabid dogs one second and behave like domesticated dogs the next. If a player drops an F-bomb on an official, fine, T him up. But if he waves his arm in disgust or disappointment and that's the end of it, for crying out loud, let it go.
In the last two Celtic games I've watched I've seen Wally Szczerbiak and the Bobcats' Brevin Knight get T'd up for the mildest protests. Wally Szczerbiak and Brevin Knight. You know how out of control those thugs can get. In Szczerbiak's case it was a classic example of a guy busting his tail to fight through a pick, recovering in time to contest a shot, blocking it cleanly and then getting whistled for a foul. How is a human being supposed to react when someone else's blatant error voids his hard work? Especially when said work has resulted in the lunar-eclipse-rare event of Wally Szczerbiak blocking the shot of Rip Hamilton.
Make no mistake, autocrats love automatons. But the NBA is not an assembly line. It's not a notary public. These guys are not certified public accountants. Intensity is what makes the NBA great. Suppressing emotion is bad for business.
Remember that shoe commercial featuring Antoine Walker as "Employee No. 8" a few years back? Well, maybe that's exactly how dispassionately Mr. Stern sees these players, on whose backs he himself has become a very wealthy man. (On the other hand, it is, I suppose, testament to Stern's genius that a player like Antoine Walker could have a lucrative shoe deal.)
Yes, Stern's leadership has been a windfall for the players in the NBA. But that's a two-way street, right? He owes them something too, doesn't he?
What if Stern and his officials had been as Draconian when the NBA was taking off in the 1980s? Larry Bird's scoring average would have seriously suffered since he would have been tossed repeatedly for talking smack to his helpless defenders. The story of him taunting Chuck Person with "What's it gonna be, Chuck, a two or three?" then stepping back, draining the three and saying, "It's a three, Chuck, Merry Christmas" is one of my all-time favorites. Can you imagine that jawing earning Bird a T? Well, it would in today's law and order NBA.
What if Magic got T'd every time he turned his palms upward and dramatically declared his innocence? Or if Michael got a tech every time he glowered at a victim of one of his dunks? Well, the league would have had to overcome a lot of boring stretches spent watching guys shoot technical free throws.
During its impressive rise over the last 25 years the NBA has always done a good job of balancing the needs and desires of its fans and its corporate partners. But the regular guy sitting in the upper deck and the CEO lounging in his luxury box might not see the game the same way. For starters, the taxpayer in the upper deck might actually care about the outcome, enough even to yell and scream himself. He wants to know the players care as much as he does.
The CEO and Mr. Stern, however, do not want the passion of the players to produce any spontaneous displays of emotion that might disrupt the status quo (the status quo being big profits and generally lousy officiating).
But if the fans in the stands start to question the desire of the players, well, there won't be any profits to worry about. How long will the customers tolerate zero-tolerance?
Kevin Hench is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6154576
Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 hours ago
Last Tuesday the citizens of this great nation went to the polls and repudiated monolithic one-party rule.
It must have sent a chill down David Stern's spine.
The commish doesn't want his minions to get any ideas, lest he need to violently wield his iron scepter to remind them who is king. Mr. Stern would very much like to limit uprisings in the NBA to guys dunking in traffic. Remember when Jeff Van Gundy had the temerity to suggest that there was a real problem with the way the game was being officiated? He looked like he'd been water-boarded for several hours before his apology.
But what if the world's greatest athletes decided they'd had enough of being bullied? Enough of being told how to dress. Enough of being told to shut up. Enough of being told to forsake their second amendment rights. What if the NBA Players Association decided enough was enough and demanded a new vision (and a new visionary) for the league?
Just the thought is enough to make Stern look for somebody to fine, suspend, reprimand or threaten with a lifetime ban from the casino where he never loses.
Stern wants a league of obedient serfs who will sprint up and down the court until their lungs burn, play D until their quads ache and stay silent when Bennett Salvatore undoes all their hard work with an errant whistle.
I don't know when David Stern last played hoops, but I'd encourage him to invite some of his fellow multi-millionaires over to the house for a little game of 3-on-3. Then when it gets to point-point and one of his buddies makes a garbage call I'd like to see him remain stone silent and award the cheater the ball at the top of the key. It doesn't happen. You know why? Because you want to win. And when you really want to win, you react to an unjust call with emotion. The commish should be careful what he wishes for. When players stop reacting as if they really care, it might be because they no longer do. Do you remember the pre-Bird-Magic NBA? Remember all those possessions in the late '70s when it was unclear just how much a team cared about getting a stop?
The game has gotten so much more physically demanding, so much more intense and so much better. Bruce Bowen plays desperate denial defense 25 feet from the basket. Andres Nocioni pursues loose balls like his life depends on it. Ben Wallace protects the rim like it was his family. These are all good things. But they create a constant and necessary level of aggression that cannot be switched off when the whistle blows. You can't expect your team to defend like rabid dogs one second and behave like domesticated dogs the next. If a player drops an F-bomb on an official, fine, T him up. But if he waves his arm in disgust or disappointment and that's the end of it, for crying out loud, let it go.
In the last two Celtic games I've watched I've seen Wally Szczerbiak and the Bobcats' Brevin Knight get T'd up for the mildest protests. Wally Szczerbiak and Brevin Knight. You know how out of control those thugs can get. In Szczerbiak's case it was a classic example of a guy busting his tail to fight through a pick, recovering in time to contest a shot, blocking it cleanly and then getting whistled for a foul. How is a human being supposed to react when someone else's blatant error voids his hard work? Especially when said work has resulted in the lunar-eclipse-rare event of Wally Szczerbiak blocking the shot of Rip Hamilton.
Make no mistake, autocrats love automatons. But the NBA is not an assembly line. It's not a notary public. These guys are not certified public accountants. Intensity is what makes the NBA great. Suppressing emotion is bad for business.
Remember that shoe commercial featuring Antoine Walker as "Employee No. 8" a few years back? Well, maybe that's exactly how dispassionately Mr. Stern sees these players, on whose backs he himself has become a very wealthy man. (On the other hand, it is, I suppose, testament to Stern's genius that a player like Antoine Walker could have a lucrative shoe deal.)
Yes, Stern's leadership has been a windfall for the players in the NBA. But that's a two-way street, right? He owes them something too, doesn't he?
What if Stern and his officials had been as Draconian when the NBA was taking off in the 1980s? Larry Bird's scoring average would have seriously suffered since he would have been tossed repeatedly for talking smack to his helpless defenders. The story of him taunting Chuck Person with "What's it gonna be, Chuck, a two or three?" then stepping back, draining the three and saying, "It's a three, Chuck, Merry Christmas" is one of my all-time favorites. Can you imagine that jawing earning Bird a T? Well, it would in today's law and order NBA.
What if Magic got T'd every time he turned his palms upward and dramatically declared his innocence? Or if Michael got a tech every time he glowered at a victim of one of his dunks? Well, the league would have had to overcome a lot of boring stretches spent watching guys shoot technical free throws.
During its impressive rise over the last 25 years the NBA has always done a good job of balancing the needs and desires of its fans and its corporate partners. But the regular guy sitting in the upper deck and the CEO lounging in his luxury box might not see the game the same way. For starters, the taxpayer in the upper deck might actually care about the outcome, enough even to yell and scream himself. He wants to know the players care as much as he does.
The CEO and Mr. Stern, however, do not want the passion of the players to produce any spontaneous displays of emotion that might disrupt the status quo (the status quo being big profits and generally lousy officiating).
But if the fans in the stands start to question the desire of the players, well, there won't be any profits to worry about. How long will the customers tolerate zero-tolerance?
Kevin Hench is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6154576