Diaw/Amare suspended 1 game, Horry suspended 2 games

[ThomasPHoolery]

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Thomas - you honestly think, after watching the incident, based on what Amare and Diaw did... they should be suspended for a game for these actions?

And Baron Davis should be allowed to play after his forearm shiver?

-Al

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No, I don't think Baron should be allowed to play. I think the league has done an awful, awful awful job this playoffs and last at dispensing fair, uniform punishment for incidents.

My point is, in this situation, I think Stern's point is that the spirit and letter of the law align here, and there may need to be some changes in the both. Everyone is right, there should be a grey area that grades altercations, but the league owners have time and again said that they feel that leaving the bench during an altercation is completely unacceptable behavior. In the league's mind, if they admit that an incident happened, the owners and the rules committee have decided that a certain action must be taken. It's draconian, it needs to be reexamined, but that's not Stern's job to make that decision, and I'm glad he didn't.

The league this playoffs has once made another decision in a matter like this that got no discussion but I thought was even worse. Jason Richardson got fined 35K for inappropriate interactions with a Dallas fan. Now, I have no idea what happened there. I have no idea if Richardson should have been fined, suspended or nothing, but according to the letter of the rules, IF the league is going to say that something, anything happened between Richardson and a fan, Richardson must be suspended. They didn't, and i don't know why-- it might have been to not disrupt the competitive balance of a series, which I think is an awful reason to make a decision. Most likely, no action should have been taken, but the league going against its policy and determining there was a gray area there was wrong, and I think it would be wrong in this case too.

Look at the rule, fine. Change it, fine. But I think Stern feels that the letter and spirit both compel him to make this decision. The NBA reffing and rule situation needs to be fixed, but making an ad hoc decision to fix it by enforcement instead of fixing it by statute is absolutely wrong in my mind.