Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Greedy NBA Ignores Dwight Howard Guilt








Did anybody really think the NBA would suspend Houston Rockets' center Dwight Howard for tonight's game?  No way that was ever going to happen. Remember this is the money-grubbing NBA we're talking about.

What happened is that Howard clobbered the Golden State Warriors' Andrew Bogut at the 8:06 mark in the third quarter of the Houston's 128-115 victory on Monday night in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals. Howard was assessed a Flagrant 1 foul.

Rod Thorn, president of the NBA's basketball operations, announced that, upon review, the penalty would stand.  If it had been upgraded to a Flagrant 2, Howard would have been suspended and unavailable for tonight's crucial Game 5. The Warriors' lead the series 3-1 and could claim the Western title with a win.

Actually the call should have been changed to a Flagrant 2. It should always have been a Flagrant 2. When the foul happened the refs blew the call. What Howard did was worse than what Atlanta forward Al Horford did to Cleveland's Matthew Bellavedova in the second quarter of Game 3 of that series, which got Horford ejected immediately. In reviewing the Howard foul the league had a chance to right a wrong. So if the NBA was being fair and consistent Howard would be on the same Flagrant 2 boat as Horford and would not play tonight.

But, let's face it. What's important to the NBA is money. Fair play and consistency in penalties, who cares? The NBA wants a big audience for tonight's game. If it promises to be competitive, people will watch. Without Howard, it wouldn't be competitive and many fans wouldn't tune in, which hurts ratings, which hurts the NBA's wallet.

Consequently the NBA does what is necessary to attract the biggest audience, which means Howard plays, and fair play be damned. So that bogus Flagrant 1 stays a bogus Flagrant 1. This is just more evidence for conspiracy theorists who swear the NBA rigs games based on TV ratings.

Chalk up another stain on the NBA's soiled integrity..
.







No comments:

Post a Comment