Bread and Circuses

Is David Stern a brilliant sports commissioner, paranoid power freak, or Kennesaw Mountain Landis in a better suit? I’m leaning to the Landis comparison after Stern’s nuclear version of justice leveled the Phoenix Suns and helped San Antonio to a 3-2 series lead after the one game suspensions of Amare Stoudamire and Boris Diaw.

Stoudamire and Diaw left the bench after Robert Horry checked Steve Nash into the sidelines at the end of Game 4 of the Suns-Spurs series. A check is really what it was, a hockey play in a basketball game, something nobody would have batted an eye at if it was Sabres-Senators. But, this being the NBA it became a cause celebre and an endless tape loop on ESPN. As for Stoudamire and Diaw, their actions on leaving the bench consisted of nothing more than a few harsh words and some milling about. Hardly worth a suspension, especially in a playoff game.

“Rules are rules” thunders the NBA, without explaining why those rules are absolutes unfettered by judgement or degree. The simple answer is that Stern is a bit paranoid. He and the league are saying that players must be suspended for leaving the bench, because who knows what will happen if they do. Which, when considered calmly, is more than a bit insulting to the players.

Have there been violent incidents? Yes. Did one famous one spill into the stands? You bet Ron Artest’s contract it did. But does that mean that, unlike baseball and hockey players, basketball players are naturally inclined to escalate pushing and shoving into a riot? Of course not. But you get the idea the league has it’s doubts.

If you caught David Stern in an unguarded moment he would likely say that harsh discipline is required to ensure that incidents that reinforce stereotypes of NBA players don’t reflect badly on the game. Then again, maybe it’s Stern who is the one stereotyping the players and using public relations as an excuse. Maybe, just maybe, David Stern is out of touch with today’s players. If so, he’s not alone.

Think about Larry Brown’s tenure with the Knicks. A strong coach with a good track record gets no traction in a job that should have been made for him, because young players didn’t respond to his style. Announcers and sportswriters struggle, along with us bloggers, to critique the hip-hop generation of NBA players without sounding as if race is entering into our perceptions. Which of course it does.

So here is David Stern in the middle of a largely successful showcase for his league suspending two key players in a pivotal playoff game, affecting the outcome of the series and making a non-basketball event the story of the day. Which is supposedly what automatic suspensions for going on the court were designed to avoid.

Memo to David Stern: Justice without judgement isn’t justice. Not every line crossed is a line crossed, and sometimes basketball players (like their counterparts in other sports) are going to push and shove and talk trash without brawling. Players know from the Artest suspension what consequences attach to real fighting, and the vast majority have enough common sense and judgement not to throw away the playoffs for their team and a good chunk of a season by escalating shoving matches into violence.

There are alternatives. If the suspension policy for leaving the bench makes sense, enforce the suspensions at the start of the regular season and make them 5 games per incident instead of one. If there is an actual fight, make it 15 games. That should get the attention of players and teams.

Alone among the four major sports, the NBA tampers with it’s premier product by suspending players during the playoffs. It doesn’t have to be that way, and if the commissioner doesn’t know that maybe it’s time to suspend David Stern.

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