In one of the biggest blunders of rule enforcement of recent history, the NBA has decided to ban emotion from its game. Yes, really, you're not reading this on the Onion (http://www.theonion.com/), a popular parody site. Seriously, why would you want to take the emotion from the game? To make it less fun? It is not just about complaining to the referees (which is bad), but it goes so far as to basically make the players robots. Read the article from the Associated Press for yourself (I link to it at the end of this posting, but you can probably read it easier at espn.com, nba.com, or various other news sites.).
Now, what is crazy is this: a lot of what the NBA advertises about the game is about all of the EMOTION. Some of the greatest plays that you may remember from the game, the surrounding emotions to them, are what make them stick in your head. Seriously, just about any gesture that a player can do (even those NOT directed at the referee, or another player) can result in a technical foul, according to this article. I mean, come on, it means that some of our fondest memories of Shawn Kemp wouldn't be valid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewEt4SHxgc. I especially like the last one, A.K.A. the "Lister Blister". And what about Scottie Pippen's thundering dunk on Ewing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhd0ZFrb7y0 . Hrm, it appears Pippen did get penalized for that one, if you watch the video, but I sure bet Ewing feels "penalized" after that vicious crotch walk after the dunk. :D
As a bystander, I am suspecting this means that referees have even more power to decide games. It's bad enough with the charging/blocking calls, where it feels like a player's star power determines how the call goes, or people keep going back to the Mavericks/Heat Finals, and saying the league had it in for Mark Cuban http://danonthestreet.com/news/2010/06/03/mark-cuban-and-stan-van-gundy-weigh-in-on-tim-donaghy/, or even how flagrant fouls can be arbitrarily dished out during games. There is too much left up to interpretation, which just screams "exploit".
If the NBA thought it had scandals before involving the referees, this stepped up enforcement seems designed to make sure the game "goes as planned." If you thought the NBA was run by the mafia before, what are you thinking now?
Truth be told, it's probably worse than I am describing it. You can basically say that it is because their sponsors and the rich fans who sit in the luxury boxes do not necessarily like to see the players showing their emotions. You know where I'm going with this. Think of what happened to the composition of the Indiana Pacers, after the "Brawl at the Palace". http://www.drbilllong.com/CurrentEvents/TheBrawl.html http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2009/07/10/pacers-roster-raises-uncomfortable-questions-about-race/tab/comments/
Just read the article for yourself. This article comes from the Associated Press, and I'm using its free link below:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment