TOP: March 23, 2012 - Jason Smith plows into Blake Griffin. A day later, Smith is suspended 2 games for what Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President Basketball Operations, deemed “excessive contact with the upper body of Griffin.”
BOTTOM: May 15, 2012 - Dwyane Wade barrels into Darren Collison. Unlike Griffin, Collison never saw Wade, who shoved the Indiana PG from behind. Wade, like Smith, made no basketball play. Collison didn’t even have the ball. Dwyane Wade also extended his forearm, pushing Collison underneath the basket.
Given the ruling on Smith, Wade should absolutely be suspended at least one game. Unfortunately, as we all know by now, David Stern is a crook, and the league values Dwyane and the Heat far more than Jason and the Hornets.
As if you needed ANYMORE EVIDENCE that he’s a dirty player…I give you this football/hockey style takedown. Definitely a flagrant 1, but I am still surprised that I didn’t see Wade spread his arms in disbelief at the referee. If you were watching the game, you saw that play where Wade thought he got fouled, then stayed behind to bicker at the ref rather than get back on defense, leading to a 5-on-4 fastbreak score for Indiana. I would say call him out for his lack of defensive effort costing his team on that play, but that’s a post for another time.
Getting back to the video, however, I also enjoyed the comment right after where Marv Albert says that ‘Wade was looking to confront Collison, who just walked away.”
Who the hell is raring to confront a guy after taking him down?? If anything, Collison should be up in Wade’s face, but he displays exceptional reserve and just walks off. I love when I see players get up and completely disregard hard fouls or dirty moves, but it just blows my mind that Dwyane Wade would be ready to pick a fight right after he pulled a very dirty play.
I’ve made it clear that I really hate Wade. I don’t mind Lebron James in the slightest. He is an incredible talent and I have no doubt that he is the best player in the NBA. But Lebron doesn’t play dirty (well, not ALL the time). Dwyane Wade is a completely different story.
In my opinion (which probably means nothing to anyone, and that’s fine because this is just a rant) Wade is a whiny instigator who benefits from his “superstar” status with the referees and gets away with stuff that very few other players will. How many times have you seen Wade miss (or even make) a shot and then turn and spread his arms to the refs? He does it ALL THE TIME. Seriously, at least 2x per game, and yet there is RARELY any technical called.
But then what happens to other players, including other stars? Rondo gets techs, Dirk gets techs…hell, even KOBE BRYANT gets techs. But, for some reason, Dwyane Wade gets away with a lot and he acts like he owns the court. Now I’m getting into less analytical and more subjective territory. The way Wade “swaggers” now that he has Lebron and Bosh on his team is just sickening, but it has nothing to do with how dirty of a player he is, so that can be addressed later.
In short, Wade needs to learn how to take out his frustration in a less violent way. There are a lot of things I would love to see changed in the NBA (flopping, referee accountability on rescinded techs, block/charge calls, moving screen calls, etc), but if there was one thing I could change right now it would be the perception that Dwyane Wade is some great player, but not a dirty one. I want the NBA and it’s officials to recognize that Wade is among the dirtiest. Reggie Evans? Yeah, he’s pretty bad. Kevin Garnett? I am biased and think he’s all talk, but he still has his moments. But these are guys with a reputation, deserved or otherwise. Wade is still considered an NBA golden boy, and that misconception needs to be wiped out!
The refs screwed up big time in Game 6 of the Boston-Atlanta series. This was an elimination game for the Hawks and they definitely played that way. Boston made a run spanning the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and then went ice cold/started sucking and Atlanta clawed back into it.
Boston did not deserve to win that game. I am a huge Celtics fan, and I believe that Boston played like absolute garbage near the end (well, except KG. He turned that beast mode up to 11 last night). They had terrible decisions on offense, missed easy shots (I believe Ray missed 2 free throws last night), and allowed Al Horford, who missed 4 months with a torn pectoral, to almost single-handedly win the game for Atlanta.
ESPN (more specifically, the TrueHoop blog) has a fantastic article on the Clippers vs. Grizzlies Game 3 from last night. Everyone loves Blake Griffin’s dunks but hates his flopping. I understand that the guy is battered night in and out by players hoping to avoid becoming the next Mozgov or Perkins.
Great video from the NBA as part of their series of “BIG” commercials (or whatever they are called).
As a Celtics fan, I obviously love this video, but it’s nice to see some acknowledgement from the NBA as well. I feel like “old” teams (read: Boston and San Antonio) are often overlooked for the flashier “young” teams like OKC, Miami, LA Clippers, and [regardless of age] the Lakers. If anyone watched “The Association: Boston Celtics” last year, they saw these pre-game tunnel huddles with all the chanting and jumping. A bunch of “Celtics, hooahh…1-2-3-UBUNTU!” kind of stuff. The music is pretty awesome, too. I just keep watching this video. It could become a great pre-game thing for me. We’ll see.
Also, I’ll be a little deactivated for the next few days as I have exams and a really bad allergy thing. Makes computer work no fun. I would have loved to cover yesterday’s OT Celtics-Hawks game (did anyone really expect anything less than a triple-double from Rajon Rondo?), but I missed the game entirely as I was moving stuff out of my apartment.
Hopefully if the Celtics get to the 2nd round I’ll cover more of their games; I’ll also try to get more coverage of OKC and perhaps one of the less heralded games, like those involving the Pacers or Spurs.
There’s the official announcement. Chandler of the New York Knicks has been voted DPOY for 2011-2012. Not really a surprise, considering how people gushed over his contributions (and they were pretty damn solid) to the 2011 Mavericks championship squad. Joining a Knicks squad that is totally defensively challenged, especially with guys like Melo and Amar’e on the floor, it was almost expected that he should win the DPOY award and actually make noticeable improvements in the Knicks’ defense.
I feel like I still want to bash referees on this blog as much as possible. At the same time, the wannabe basketball analyst within me wants to post and analyze all types of NBA news.
So, I’ll do that. I’ll also try to catch referee slip-ups (either through videos captured by others, or my own viewings of games), but NBA news is some of the best reading material. Combine that with my inflated opinion of how I can write about it, and that makes for an all-things-basketball (NBA ONLY) blog.
So, here is a prime example from last night’s Celtics-Hawks game of a Josh Smith FLOP. Something has to be done about players (Celtics included, such as Paul Pierce) flopping to get a call. It might be hard to tell sometimes, especially if the players spent enough time at UCLA/in the Hollywood area, but it slows down the game and is a really lazy way of “helping” your team.
Be careful, Smoove. Don’t want to wrench your back as you leap toward the ground.
