The One Where World Peace Sends James Harden's Head Halfway to Anaheim

Laimbeer was a punk, but Dennis Rodman was the bigger punk on that Pistons team of thugs.

 

I don't see the Howard or Harris fouls as even remotely similar. Both are hard fouls, but they're during the course of play attempting to prevent the other team from scoring. Even the Bell foul is somewhat similar in that at least a guy had the ball and was trying to drive past him.

Artest decked a guy who had no inkling he was about to get hit, much less in the head with a hard elbow. To me, apples and oranges.

 

And JC's point is proven.

 

Stern's trying to rehab the image of the league, to make it more popular among the masses like it was in the 1980s (and never mind that Laimbeer and company fought a lot with other teams in that era).

Artest's role in the Palace brawl was the NBA's lowest point of the last decade. No way he wants to revive those images. He doesn't deserve a long suspension or lifetime ban, but he should at least get three to five games.

 

He should be out the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs. He can call the league office on August 1st to talk about next season.

 

I kind of wish Ibaka hadn't been restrained. That could have been so much more interesting.

 

In Goodell's NFL this would easily merit a suspension—a dead-ball shot to the head on a player who wasn't looking—and I have to think that will influence Stern here when it comes to severity of punishment. He will err on the side of more, not less.

 

Rest of playoffs, and first 15 of next year.

The playoffs are going to be fun as all get out if the Lakers-Thunder ever play each other.

 

Something like that. Harden's no choir boy, but he never saw that elbow coming. World Peace my ass.

 

He deserves a suspension. I could see it maybe being eight games, would guarantee he'd miss the first round. Maybe it'll be more. But Bynum got five for leveling Barea and that was his third offense with that dangerous move (Beasley and Gerald Wallace being the other victims). Kevin Love stepped on Scola's head - two games.

In recent NBA history, there's no precedent for coming up with a real long suspension for a move like this (even if the other ones weren't exactly like Artest's).

And how about some elbows?

Arron Afflalo, few weeks ago:

1 game.

Do a search for elbows on this list of suspensions:
http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/fines.html

One resulted in fractured eye socket. One game.

Again, were they exactly comparable to the play yesterday? No. But this one is also getting a lot more attention than all those other ones because of who it was and when the game aired. And is this one so much worse than some of the ones on that list, that he deserves to be banned for the rest of the year? Maybe, it was ludicrous and dangerous. But the NBA's precedent isn't to send guys away for a long time for similar actions.

 

It might make an interesting discussion to ask "In what way should a professional sports league be held accountable for the mental stability of its players?"

Seems like the NBA hasn't done much to address Artest's deeper issues.

 

Thanks for the link. The Afflalo one is a lot more comparable, because it's off the ball. I agree he probably won't be suspended for the whole year. I think he'll get at least five games, though.

Like you said, this one is getting more air time than a lot of the other ones. I think that'll play into the decision some, regardless of whether it should.