Is it me, or are the Lakers consistently responsible for the next suspension-worthy flagrant 90 foul in the NBA? If you haven't seen the video, watch it here. Notice that it's the end of the 3rd quarter (still lots of basketball to play), and the Lakers are getting blown out 83-55, and Rudy Fernandez goes off on a breakaway that you just have to live with if you're playing defense, the only guy with the skills to cleanly block that shot was Kobe Bryant and he was clear on the other side of the court, and Trevor Ariza swats at Fernandez like he's a little Spanish mosquito that just sucked the blood out of you, your family and possibly your dog.
I wonder if Ariza is just "young and inexperienced" and isn't smart enough to just challenge Fernandez without assassinating him or if it's a tactic coming from Guru Jackson. Either way, this is probably the closest Fernandez has been to death since he ran with the bulls in Pamplona (though I'm still checking up on whether he was even there either), and it was a sissy swat by a player with the defensive skills of the Detroit Lions (that's right, I said it).
Here's my favorite part. Obviously, this is a Flagrant 2 foul and Ariza deserves a suspension (which he didn't get, Lamar Odom did instead for leaving the bench). Still, fast forward to about the 2:35 mark on the video when the crowd finds out it's a flagrant 2 foul, and check out the one Lakers fan in the Kobe jersey standing there and obviously saying the call is garbage (though we all know that isn't the word he used). Is he serious?? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Obviously that kid is from some third-world place where basketball is played in nuclear sludge and "defense" is another word for clotheslining a player on his way to the basket and he's at the game because he won a contest sponsored by the NBA or UNICEF or the Ronald McDonald House allowing him to watch his favorite player live from the second row. That or (and here's what I really think) this guy's a moron, along with the rest of the Lakers fans who flagrant foul after flagrant foul can't believe how badly the league picks on their poor defensless players who really have nothing resembling defense in their basketball repertoire.
Bottom line: Ariza should be suspended. Not that it would hurt the Lakers that bad, but it's the fair thing to do. And that fan too. Suspend him too. Indefinitely. Or put him in basketball camp against Ariza during his suspension.
-J
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment