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Originally Posted by JRutledge
I have been watching the NBA for years and was actually in Chicago watching the Knicks-Bulls game in a Chicago Hooters with some friends
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What?! You were in a Hooters and you watched the
game?!
I think what some people are missing in this discussion is that you or I are not necessarily arguing the merits of the rule, just the fact the rule exists. In Stern's case, he is an employee of the owners, the owners voted in the rule as it currently stands, and he is enforcing it as written. Is it a bad rule? Maybe. Did it give an advantage to the Spurs in this case? Yep. But it's not Stern's fault for enforcing what the owners told him to enforce. We don't know if he contacted some of the owners after this went down to see if he did have any discretion in the suspension ruling. My guess is he didn't, and he did exactly what his bosses told him to do. I'm not aware of the league's definition of "altercation", but I have a feeling what happened in the Horry/Nash play falls under that definition, and the hard foul Duncan reacted to does not.
That makes his position no different than ours as officials. We are hired by supervisors to enforce the rules, not only as they are written, but as they tell us they are to be enforced. If a supervisor tells me his definition of a fight includes a player taking a swing, but missing, another player, than I don't get to make the decision during the game that, well, this is their star player, he really didn't mean it, it will affect the outcome of the game if I eject him, yada, yada. I do what I'm told, and I don't care if I think it's fair or not. That's what I think Stern did in this case. If it's not fair to the Suns, then blame the owners, don't blame Stern.