Thoughts on Bowen

[ImpartialObserver]

Here are some thoughts on Bowen from a non-Spurs and non-Suns fan.

The Nash incident imo was an overblown reaction to the Amare incident. I don't think there would have been an investigation (and there shouldn't have been) had it not come a game after the Amare incident. Imo, Nash invaded Bowen's personal space and was moved out of it forcefully. Yeah, it wasn't pretty, but that is what I would call tough playoff basketball. The Amare incident, however, was not.

Bowen should be thanking his lucky stars that he didn't get suspended for several games for that intent to injure on Amare, which it clearly was. Given his past track record of sticking his foot under jump shooters that have resulted in severe injuries (Steve Francis), I don't see how anyone can give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw one homer actually write that he was just getting into position for a rebound. Really? Bowen thought Amare might brick a virtually uncontested two-handed slam leading to a rebound? Come on. And how can anyone blame Amare for saying what he said after having sat out for over a year due to injury? Can any Spurs fan honestly say that they wouldn't have been furious if someone did that to TD?

Do I think Bowen is a dirty player? I didn't use to think so, but after watching a number of incidents he has been in, I now believe he is. Does it take away from the Spurs as a whole? I would say not really since most of the Spurs players seem to be very nice people besides being good basketball players.

[Kori Ellis]

Bowen should be thanking his lucky stars that he didn't get suspended for several games for that intent to injure on Amare, which it clearly was.

:lol
Yeah it was so clear that the league didn't even review it.

The knee to Nash was far worse than Bowen stepping on the back of Amare's shoe.

And yes, I can say that I wouldn't be furious if someone stepped on the back of Tim's heel. In fact someone probably does it every game.

[timvp]

Here are some thoughts on Bowen from a bandwagon Warriors fan.

Fixed.

[DarrinS]

Gee, thanks for that brilliant analysis. :sleep

[Big P]

Its kind of hard to purposely step on someones foot when Bowen wasn't even looking down, he was looking at the basket.

[01Snake]

Bowen thought Amare might brick a virtually uncontested two-handed slam leading to a rebound? Come on.

He sure as fuck did just that in Game 3.

Thanks for coming out though.

[Spurminator]

If that was intent to injure, then Bowen isn't all that bright. Typically if you want to injure someone by kicking them in the ankle, you should do so with a little more force.

I've played "Footsies" rougher than that.

[T Park]

So Bowen is a bad person cause hes a tough player?

impartial my ass.

[GrandeDavid]

:sleep

[diego]

actually amare bricked several open dunks the last game, the ball is still in play until it goes through the hoop.

whats funny is that bowen clips amare going up, then pulls his foot out as amare comes down. if bowen had been out to injure him, why didnt he use his "old tactic" and let amare land on his foot?

[Obstructed_View]

Anyone that points out people landing on Bowen's feet while not noticing that it happens a half dozen times a game just doesn't watch basketball. Bowen did something funky with his foot on the Amare play. It looked unnatural and the questions are going to arise from that. It was so inconsequential that I'm just amazed that it won't go the hell away. Debating someone's intent is boring. I'd rather talk about basketball.

[CosmicCowboy]

I really tried to watch that Amare incident objectively and re-ran it several times freeze framing it...Bruce is a heck of an athlete but I'm not sure he is capable of intentionally kicking the achilles of a running Stoudamire while his head is up and looking to the left. I really don't think it was intentional. This time anyway LOL. Now I WILL give you that he will move up and crowd perimeter jumpshooters and get under their feet. It's a head game. He's not necessarily trying to hurt them but he wants them thinking about where their feet are gonna land and not the shot. Some things you just can't clearcut legislate as a rule. I guess they could declare a halo zone like the have on kickoff receivers in football and we would end up with nothing but teams of three point specialists jacking threes. No thanks.

[ImpartialObserver]

Anyone that points out people landing on Bowen's feet while not noticing that it happens a half dozen times a game just doesn't watch basketball. Bowen did something funky with his foot on the Amare play. It looked unnatural and the questions are going to arise from that. It was so inconsequential that I'm just amazed that it won't go the hell away. Debating someone's intent is boring. I'd rather talk about basketball.

Yes, that is true that it happens multiple times a game, but Bowen clearly sticks his foot under jump shooters when he doesn't have to. And it's not like he is using that foot to pivot and box the man he is guarding out, so why the heck is he doing it then? Is he trying to injure them? Probably not, but he damn well knows that it will throw players off their game if they have to worry that they might bust up their ankle after a shot when Bowen is guarding them. Is it illegal? No, but it is cheap and dirty. Mind you, being dirty doesn't necessarily mean that one is breaking the rules.

[T Park]

but it is cheap and dirty. Mind you, being dirty doesn't necessarily mean that one is breaking the rules.

YAWN

theres nothing cheap and dirty about it, if he was even doing anything purposefull.

[Obstructed_View]

Yes, that is true that it happens multiple times a game, but Bowen clearly sticks his foot under jump shooters when he doesn't have to. And it's not like he is using that foot to pivot and box the man he is guarding out, so why the heck is he doing it then? Is he trying to injure them? Probably not, but he damn well knows that it will throw players off their game if they have to worry that they might bust up their ankle after a shot when Bowen is guarding them. Is it illegal? No, but it is cheap and dirty. Mind you, being dirty doesn't necessarily mean that one is breaking the rules.
Bowen "clearly" sticks his foot under jump shooters? The day there's any evidence of that he'll be suspended. He defends the guy on the other team who takes the lion's share of the shots. It's amazing it happens as rarely as it does, and as often as not it happens to guys who jump forward when they shoot.

BTW, in your first post you said you didn't think Bowen was dirty. Didn't take you long, did it?

[DarrinS]

Is he trying to injure them? Probably not, but he damn well knows that it will throw players off their game if they have to worry that they might bust up their ankle after a shot when Bowen is guarding them. Is it illegal? No, but it is cheap and dirty.


Any dirtier than putting a hand in a shooters face?


Keep in mind, his job is to make shooters miss.

[ImpartialObserver]

Bowen "clearly" sticks his foot under jump shooters? The day there's any evidence of that he'll be suspended. He defends the guy on the other team who takes the lion's share of the shots. It's amazing it happens as rarely as it does, and as often as not it happens to guys who jump forward when they shoot.

I don't know what to say other than he has already injured a few players doing just that. Also, it's not against the rules to do what he has been doing yet......so a suspension would have a good chance of being overturned by the player's union.



BTW, in your first post you said you didn't think Bowen was dirty. Didn't take you long, did it?

Btw, I didn't say that in my first post. This is what I said:



Do I think Bowen is a dirty player? I didn't use to think so, but after watching a number of incidents he has been in, I now believe he is.

[T Park]

I don't know what to say other than he has already injured a few players doing just that

links to these players please.

[ImpartialObserver]

links to these players please.


Link #1 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPQkEsM8uM)

Btw, if Isiah Thomas is calling Bowen dirty, then you know he is dirty since Thomas was the ring leader of that group of thugs known as the Bad Boys. You can bet he knows dirty play when he sees it and he was right in front of the Crawford incident.

Link #2 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQMubkHKPE)

[5ToolMan]

Bowen has played over 1,500,000 seconds of NBA Basketball. In his entire career those who cry about Bowen's "dirty play" come up with about 10 seconds of examples to site as "evidence" to support their claims.

Those crying about Bowen being dirty need to learn the game, accept the reality of the game and learn to do some math. We all understand Bowen plays agressive man to man defense. And we all understand he is in the face of his opponent for most of the time he is on the floor. And when a man plays tough nose to nose defense, some contact will happen. It happens with every tough defender in the league. But mostly the cries are over Bruce. I wonder why?

The only difference with Bowen that I see, is Bruce is amoung the best, if not the very best perimenter defenders in the game. And, with Bruce as a big part of the Spurs top rated defense, the Spurs have been the top team in the NBA over Bruce's time with the team, helping them deliver two NBA Titles, and again strongly contending for their 3rd ring in 8 years.

All of you crying about how much Bruce abuses your team and whinny stars with dirty play, put away the klenix and grab a pencil for your math lesson. Now divide 10 by 1,500,000 to see how often Bruce has been involved in one of those "dirty plays" you love to cry about.

If that math was not too hard for you, it should start to sink in that Bruce's "dirty plays" that you love to whine and complain about so often have happened once every 150,000 seconds he has been on the floor for his entire career. Expressed another way, the chances of Bruce making "dirty" contact in any given second on the floor is once .000000666 seconds.

Oh my God! In doing my statistical analysis, I think I have just stumbled upon evidence that Bruce (.000000666) is the Devil! I guess it is time for all Spur Fans to admit he is dirty. :lol

[5ToolMan]

Link #1 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPQkEsM8uM)

Btw, if Isiah Thomas is calling Bowen dirty, then you know he is dirty since Thomas was the ring leader of that group of thugs known as the Bad Boys. You can bet he knows dirty play when he sees it and he was right in front of the Crawford incident.

Link #2 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQMubkHKPE)

Your "evidence" is as much as a joke as you are. On the Francis shot Bowen might have invaded his space some, but Steve is just as guilty because he jumped sideways not straight up and down. On the other Knicks shot the Knick jumped from outside the three point line and landed near Bruces feet well inside the arc.

In your last shot, blaming Bowen for the ankle shows your desperation. This type of play happens thousands of times a year in the NBA. It is called defense. I know it is foreign to most of the NBA, but a few teams do play it. Mostly we call those teams CHAMPIONS!

Now please stop showing your ignorance by trying to prove something way over your head, and move on.

[picnroll]

So ImpartialObserver is Baron getting suspended for his elbow to Fisher's head? Now that is what dirty looks like. Can't recall many of those from Bowen.

[sunsbum]

Here are some thoughts on Bowen from a non-Spurs and non-Suns fan.

The Nash incident imo was an overblown reaction to the Amare incident. I don't think there would have been an investigation (and there shouldn't have been) had it not come a game after the Amare incident. Imo, Nash invaded Bowen's personal space and was moved out of it forcefully. Yeah, it wasn't pretty, but that is what I would call tough playoff basketball. The Amare incident, however, was not.

Bowen should be thanking his lucky stars that he didn't get suspended for several games for that intent to injure on Amare, which it clearly was. Given his past track record of sticking his foot under jump shooters that have resulted in severe injuries (Steve Francis), I don't see how anyone can give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw one homer actually write that he was just getting into position for a rebound. Really? Bowen thought Amare might brick a virtually uncontested two-handed slam leading to a rebound? Come on. And how can anyone blame Amare for saying what he said after having sat out for over a year due to injury? Can any Spurs fan honestly say that they wouldn't have been furious if someone did that to TD?

Do I think Bowen is a dirty player? I didn't use to think so, but after watching a number of incidents he has been in, I now believe he is. Does it take away from the Spurs as a whole? I would say not really since most of the Spurs players seem to be very nice people besides being good basketball players.

First off, i love how this guy comes here tries to give an unbiased opinion, well thought out and not flaming in the least bit...and you guys just bash the fuck out of him like hes been here trolling for the last few weeks.


second - to the OP spurs fans will come up with excuse after excuse as to why their boy is as clean as a whistle. i mean the footage is right there in front of their face and they refuse to acknowlege ANY hint of foul play. its fairly ridiculous.

[Marcus Bryant]

Link #1 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPQkEsM8uM)

Btw, if Isiah Thomas is calling Bowen dirty, then you know he is dirty since Thomas was the ring leader of that group of thugs known as the Bad Boys. You can bet he knows dirty play when he sees it and he was right in front of the Crawford incident.

Link #2 to Bowen injuring a player from landing on his foot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQMubkHKPE)

How about the time he administered the flying kick to Sczerbiak's jaw? That was some good stuff.

[Fernando TD21]

I think this wasn't posted yet, sorry if it was already posted:


Bad rep beats rap
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
May 14, 2007

Bruce Bowen beat the rap again Monday, a knee to the groin of the two-time MVP getting merely a tsk-tsk out of the NBA offices. Everyone marvels over the way that Bowen deliver his blows – such as the shot to Steve Nash's private parts, the kick to Amare Stoudemire's Achilles' – yet stays long on suspicion and short on suspensions.

They've called him the chippiest player in the sport, but all those slow-motion indictments on YouTube still haven't caused him a conviction at league headquarters. As quickly as he crosses the line, the beauty of Bowen is that he'll leap before they catch him.

In this season alone, Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Isiah Thomas and now Stoudemire have, to different degrees, called Bowen a dirty basketball player.

Truth be told, he's Eddie Haskell in high tops.

"Michael Finley had more issues with Bruce than anyone before he came to play with him," Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said by phone before Game 4 in San Antonio on Monday night. "Bruce is in other people's space more consistently than any defender I've ever seen. When you don't have to face that on a night-to-night basis, it provides a great deal of frustration for players who are used to getting the benefits of their space."

Finally, Buford said, "You don't want to be in the pickup game with the guy in high socks who's got his arms up and wrapped around you."

For all the charges, all the accusations, the league office never has nailed him. Isolated, there's a perfectly plausible explanation for everything he does. Yet all together, there's a compelling case that his constant entanglements with David Stern's brightest stars are no coincidence.

They accuse him of sliding his foot underneath a jump shooter, causing ankles to turn upon landing. When that happened this season, it cost Carter six games with a sprained ankle. "I'm sure he'll say it's an accident," Carter grumbled, and yes, Bowen said it was an accident. Happened with the Knicks' Steve Francis, too, and Isiah lost his mind.

In the end, Bowen, 34, knows this: When he's on the floor, you're thinking about him. He's on your mind when he's up in your face, and he's on it when he's nowhere to be found. Bowen loves it, because it means you're thinking about him, when you should be thinking about winning. Who else in the NBA is asked to cover Zach Randolph and Steve Nash in the same season – never mind all the Kobe Bryants, and Dwyane Wades and LeBron Jameses?

As much as anything, Bowen willed himself to make those stars know his name – and respect it. Bowen makes his living creating discomfort for the most comfortable stars in the sport. Whatever sense of entitlement the game's international icons feel, Bowen has a habit of stripping it away, play by play.

In his life, everything that conspired to keep him out of an NBA career hurtled him toward it. He fought so long, so hard, to get into the league, he was willing to do whatever it took to stay. For this, you have to admire him. As a kid in Fresno, he was shunned by his biological parents. As the Washington Post's Mike Wise once wrote, Bowen's father took the paychecks that Bruce earned delivering telephone books for booze. His mother once traded the family TV for crack cocaine. When Bowen resisted their reconciliations as an adult, his grandmother called him a "Satan."

He struggled to get a scholarship out of high school, went undrafted out of college and has stops in Rockford, Fort Wayne and Sioux Falls of the CBA between jobs overseas in France. Here's the thing with Bowen, love him or hate him: He keeps coming, and coming. He wears you down to a nub.

Seven years ago, the Spurs' coach, Gregg Popovich, recruited him as a free agent to the championship Spurs. What he did was take a good interior defensive team, anchored by Tim Duncan, and elevate it to greatness on the perimeter. In the past five seasons, Bowen hasn't missed one game. Along the way, he logged the hours in the gym to take advantage of the open shots that come his way alongside Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

Maybe he would've stayed with Rick Pitino's Celtics and Larry Brown's 76ers and Pat Riley's Heat if he could've made a jump shot. Of course, they would've been wise to give the time to develop it.

"He's outworked people to reap those benefits offensively," Buford said.

Mostly, Bruce Bowen has stayed in the space of the sport's biggest stars, squeezing and squeezing until there comes that uneasy sense of suffocation. And then, for good measure, Bowen isn't above kicking you where it hurts most, too.

All these charges, but no convictions. Bruce Bowen, the last tough guy, beat the rap again.

Adrian Wojnarowski is the national NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Send Adrian a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AmzNl8jG._qgBTuJBrxqRVm8vLYF?slug=aw-bowenrap051407&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)

[mikekim]

I love great articles...although this doesn't come close to bill simmons' on TD...actually...it's really not that great but I think it's great, if that makes sense.

[cly2tw]

I understand the rationale behind the phenomemon called "Bowen". He is from the same background as Raja on my team. And they are good friends with each other. But in comparison to Raja, IMO, Bowen's demeanor reveals a trace of bitterness towards the "riches" in the world of NBA that cries "payback" for the all unjustices all over the board.