a look around the nba... feb 01 07phoenix manhandles the once invincible spurs, who would've always got up for this game in the past. amare shows duncan the kind of ferocity it's going to take to go through them and nash gets to take it fairly easy for the night. you've got to think it's either suns or mavs as nba champs at this point, with a tension packed game 7 somewhere along the line to decide it. halelujah, the nba has officially recovered from its post-jordan malaise...
dwyane wade wakes up in time from a nightmare game, to lay the wood on the spineless cavs. 24 points in the fourth quarter more than made up for the twelve turnovers he passed out like hors d’ oeuvres . and lebron was left watching the real star of the 03 class. again. shaq gets some productive burn, kapono keeps hitting shots, i can't believe this, but i think the heat are going to come out of the east again, otherwise known as the worst conference in history.
another thing, why does lebron have to play for the cavs? just saying the word 'cleveland' makes me feel a little sullied, a little tired, a bit dirty and completely resigned.... i would rather have seen him as a knick or laker, at least then he could have been the ultimate anti-hero. but now he's just stuck in the crimson and gold (more like diaper filler) in exile. and he took mj's number, which my brother ben rightfully acknowledges, is an indication that he isn't looking as high as he should. or in other words, he's got no cajones. but that's another article..
the big story today, however, is carmelo getting snubbed from the all-star team. how is this possible? the second best player from the 03 class, leading scorer in the nba and the usa basketball player of the year, can't get a sniff of the all-star game because of a sucker punch?? i'm usually a david stern sympathiser, but he's got this all wrong.
it's like the death penalty for murder (hear me out); the 15 game suspension was supposed to act as the ultimate deterrent to having players act violently in the future. the problem with this, of course, is that acts like these are acts of passion, non-premeditated, and are therefore not governed by reason. when stern ups the ante to 15 games for one punch, what happens when an honest to goodness melee happens? (and of course it will) a season will be lost due to two teams being torn apart by suspensions.
there's fighting in the nhl and the nfl. intense players are going to get into once in awhile, everyone who has ever played this sport knows this. they should just have a scale. leave the bench, a game. throw a punch or elbow, a game, land a punch, three games, multiple punchs, five to fifteen games, dependent. end of story. enter the crowd? that has to be strictly regulated; i'd give this a minimum twenty games and possibly a season suspension, dependent upon circumstances.
so in the end... carmelo misses out on the all-star game, he'll get over it. stern has needlessly escalated a war of his own making, (sounds familiar?), and it will come back to haunt him and the league.
oh, and i think melo will probably drop 50 on the blazers tonight, just to send a one fingered salute to the powers that be. bad time for portland to be heading to the mile high city.
(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
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