Not again Stu!

For those of you who may or may not know who I’m talking about in my title, I’m referring to Stu Jackson who is the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for the NBA. You might as well call him the Judge, Jury and Executioner of Basketball Operations, because they way he’s been levying penalties and suspension I can’t make heads or tails of his rulings.

Usually, I’m silent when it comes to suspensions or fines. I’ll usually accept them; sometimes I raise an eyebrow if something doesn’t quite resonate with me, but hey who am I? These league officials know the letter of the law and I’m just a fan who doesn’t much about the intimate details of Article IV, Section 8: Player conduct rules for the Strip Club (by the way that was my best imitation of a lawyer. Just call me Frank Abernathy).


This recent judgement (or lack of) regarding Kobe Bryant’s elbow to Ron Artest, is the straw that broke my back. How do does Jackson not suspend Kobe for a game? If the rule (and I’m paraphrasing) is a player gets an automatic suspension for throwing an elbow to the “Head and Neck” area of another player, then how does Kobe only get issued a Flagrant-1? (Dwight Howard was issued a game suspension for his elbow to Samuel Dalembert’s dome. Granted Howard’s elbow was thrown at the head and down, and Kobe’s elbow was thrown up and toward the neck.)

Where did Stu think Kobe’s elbow hit, was it not “neck” enough for him? Which leads me to my next question, where does the neck end and the chest begin? How did Ron Artest get called for a foul on a play where he caught an elbow to the much debated area? Finally, how is it right or fair to not call a foul on Kobe and then after reviewing the play issue him a Flagrant-1? See what you’ve done to me Stu, you’ve left me confused and, what is most important, you’ve left me debating the “end of a neck” instead of thinking about basketball.

I’m confused by the rulings of Jackson and the NBA because there seems to be little consistency to their judgements. Some rules are viewed as black and white issues, like when players leave the bench during an altercation they are automatically suspended and some rules are left up to interpretation, like this elbow-gate. However, the root of the problem isn’t with NBA front office or Stu Jackson or David Stern.

The root of the problem is the officiating. It’s the officials job to monitor play and make the calls as it happens. They are the first response to any incident on the court and they levy the first ruling, then the league can take a look a what happened and issue fines and suspensions. If the NBA is constantly reevaluating the calls on the court, what does that say about the three person officiating crew.

Not to say that they’re doing a bad job, because, for a three person officiating team, they handle it well, but clearly they’re undermanned. Because often, the officials continue to “leave the door open” for League officials to come in and alter rulings on what happened on the court. To me that says there aren’t enough officials on the court to catch everything that is going on at the speed that it’s happening.

If you look at the other major professional sports (NFL, MLB, NHL), none of them officiate their games with fewer than four officials. Of those three sports mentioned, Football has the highest player to official ratio at 3.1:1 (22 players, 7 refs). Basketball is 3.3:1. I know it might not sound like a big difference, but when you think about the regimented play of football versus the fluid motion of basketball, add the transitional speed of basketball and the fact that there are four fewer eyes to catch everything that happens with the possibility of not being in positions to make the call, it can make a big difference.

So if you’re reading David Stern, and I know he reads because he emails The Sports Pad, usually with messages like “I don’t know who you are, please stop referring to us as ‘Bro’s for life’.” “No, I will not come play golf with you and your friend Booger and I’ll have to take your word on the size of his pimp hand.”

But seriously Dave, my brotha from anotha motha, you need to change your officiating crews. Do us all a favor and give basketball fans what we crave: consistency. That’s all we want, because no matter how much attention it brings to the NBA, it taints the sport that we all want to see played at the most fair, highest level of competition.