Stern's Simplemindedness

Now that the Phoenix Suns have been eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs 4-2, there will no doubt be much discussion of whether they ultimately lost because of the 1-game suspension given to two of their best players in game five. They left their bench after their star player Nash, was knocked out of bounds with a hard foul by Horry of the Spurs. This is an iron-clad rule enacted 10 years ago, that no player can leave his bench area, supposedly to prevent fights from escalating in a game.

I can't stand David Stern. I think he is a patronizing (maybe racist) s.o.b., who sees the mostly all-Black NBA players, as children that have to be controlled, lest the white paying fans be offended at their lack of decorum, on and off the court. To this end, he has instituted draconian, inflexible rules ranging from how to dress, to when to get up or sit down on the team bench. Since he has been commissioner, he has gotten filthy rich off the backs of these players, and yet he sees them only as a commodity without regard to their feelings, or to the normal passions that may arise in the course of a game that might lead to a fight, which is normal and accepted in baseball, hockey and football which have mostly White players. His ultimate racist act, was the suspension of Ron Artest with no pay, at a cost to him of $5 million, for going into the stands and fighting with a fan that had attacked him by throwing a drink on him. The punishment meted out to Ron for having the temerity to defend himself from an attack from a fan, is akin to the old slavery days when 'massa' would unmercifully whip, or even lynch, his 'uppity' slaves to teach them and the other slaves a lesson.

Stern has been on a crusade with these zero-tolerance, mindless rules, that make no sense unless you share his racist views that millionaire Black players are not able to control themselves, and therefore need his unbending rules to govern them.

Well, those zero-tolerance rules have now come home to roost, and the very rule that was designed to constrain and punish mostly Black players, has cost the Phoenix Suns a shot at an NBA championship, because they lost a key, must-win game on their home court in the absence of their star players who were suspended.

But there is plenty of blame to go around, because I believe Steve Nash flopped and overacted as he frequently does. Had he not done such a good acting job that falsely made him appear to be seriously hurt, his teammates may not have come running off their bench to protect him, and gotten suspended.

Also this rule has cost the team owner, potentially millions of dollars, because his team was eliminated prematurely from the post-season playoffs. Stern will doubtless be pressured to do away with, or at least modify this rule that cost the Suns the game and probably the series. It's also ironic that this happened to the new 'America's favorite team', the Suns.

It took this kind of of unintended result, to highlight the arbitrariness and ridiculousness of most of Stern's imperious rules.

It's about time!