Sometimes A Fight Isn't The Worst Thing That Happens

I'm going to take a moment to write about something really important. The NBA playoffs. I mean, hey, the Suns, my beloved Suns, are in a struggle with the forces of evil. The San Antonio Spurs. The league has just suspended Amare Stodamire and Boris Diaw for tonight's pivotal game five. Why? Because they took exception to their friend, team leader and two-time league MVP being body slammed into the scorer's table by Robert Horry.

They left the bench area to see if the Sun's heart and soul had been turned into a chalk outline by yet another cheap shot from a team with a history of dirty play. Now, the league has seen fit to reward the cheap shot by suspending two of the key players for the Suns.

I understand that the league wants to keep its image bright as they prepare to go "Global" and stuff. But, here's the thing. Stopping the fights actually increases the number of cheap shots that take place. It removes the "McSorley Factor" from the game. When Wayne Gretsky was ruling the ice people wondered how a slight, not real scrappy kid from Winnepeg could skate so freely amid the sometimes brutal world of ice hockey. The answer was simple. Marty McSorley. If you took a cheap shot on Gretsky, McSorley would make you pay in pain.

There used to be basketball players who performed the same function. Kurt Rambis, Rick Mahorn, Charles Oakley and a host of other marginally gifted athletes made careers off of being willing to spend all six of their fouls making someone regret laying a cheap shot on Kareem, Dr. J and Michael Jordan. It was a crude system of justice and penalty but it worked.

When they instituted harsher penalties for fighting in hockey, cheap shots increased exponentially. The same thing has been happening with basketball. Bruce Bowen spends his entire career dishing out sneaky, dangerous little kicks to the achilles tendons and the sides of people's knees because the other players are not allowed to simply beat the living shit out of him.

Before the suspensions were handed down Charles Barkley made a very wise statement: "Nobody would have done that to one of my team mates when Rick Mahorn and I were in Philly."

Damn right Charles.

I'm not going to be at tonight's game. I have given myself the same suspension as Amare and Boris. My son and his girlfriend are going instead. I'm going to watch the game at Mom's. If the Suns can pull this one off they will be the champions for sure. If they fall, I'm going to put an Apache Mojo down on David Stern's head.