Why Suspending Stoudamire and Diaw is like Jaywalking

As some of you may have heard, the NBA suspended Amare Stoudamire and Boris Diaw for Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals, and suspended Big Shot Bob (or is he now Flying Elbow Bob) for Games 5 and 6.

If you believe in enforcing the "letter of the law", the NBA had to suspend Stoudamire and Diaw, as they both left the "immediate vicinity of the bench during an altercation." Problem is, this rule is archaic, with such nebulous definitions of "vicinity" and an "altercation" that Stu Jackson, David Stern and the rest of the NBA honchos really have discretion in determining who deserves a suspension and who doesn't. The whole reason the rule was instituted was for situations like the May 14, 1997 brawl between the Heat and the Knicks - not players taking five steps towards the altercation and then exercising self-restraint. Shit, even when the rule was instituted, Knicks players were so bullshit at the decision, they filed for an injunction against the NBA in Federal Court.

(Don't believe me? Check it out here: http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/misc/knicks.html)

This whole "letter of the law" garbage for a rule that is not enforced to the "letter of the law" reminds me of jaywalking. For example, jaywalking is described as a pedestrian crossing the street without regard to traffic rules. How many people jaywalked today in the city of Chicago? New York City? What's more - how many people did it in front, or in the "vicinity" of a cop? If a cop were to come up to you and slap you with a $50 ticket for jaywalking, you would be like "what the flying #$%@ is this? For crossing the street?" Now, if instead of simply crossing the street, you decide to stroll across the street butt ass naked singing Frank Sinatra while firing your feces at fellow pedestrians, the infraction for "dangerously or disruptively crossing the street without regard for traffic rules" makes a whole lot more sense.

Is this the exact same as the suspensions? Of course not. But what this is an example of how one ("cops") chooses not to enforce the "letter of the law" ("jaywalking") to focus on bigger issues, like say, people killing each other or Michael Vick abusing puppies.

Stu Jackson should have done the same thing. He bent the rule when Rick Fox and Doug Christie got into the girl fight in the hallway, and based part of the rationale on that "the players who left the bench were attempting to break up the fight and did not escalate the altercation." The same thing happened in Game 4, where Stoudamire and Diaw took at most 8 steps between them and retreated for escalating the altercation. They did not, to stick with the analogy, sing Ol' Blue Eyes naked and fire their own dung.

Alternatively, if he really wanted to be a strict constructionist of the law, he should have suspended Tim Duncan for a game for walking out to the 3 point line after the brief "altercation" in the second quarter. If you are going to enforce the law, enforce it all the way - otherwise, you are picking and choosing how to enforce the rule - which just sucks.

So now we are stuck with a Game 5 sans two of Phoenix's top 6 players, while the Spurs will only miss Flying Elbow Bob if: (1) the game is close and they need a clutch three or (2) they need him to do the Cross Faced Chicken Wing to Leandro Barbosa. Either way, the Suns got the shitty end of this deal.

On an unrelated note, RJ...you can suck it on your Dice K bashing.