MaceCase wrote:Why yes, I do consider it victim blaming when I see extra adjectives such as "selfish" and personally biased interpretations of the events being added. Sure, they were arrested but have you ever heard of a wrongful arrest? That just so happens to be a point that the aggrieved parties are arguing so again, simply being arrested is not an admission of guilt....the criminal justice system just doesn't work that way, you might have been briefed on this at the beginning of every Law and Order episode right before the sound of the gong. The only thing that we can say that Thabo is guilty of in terms of getting hurt is saying the one word that is guaranteed to elicit the exact opposite response of its meaning, "relax". At the mention of that (despite already being in the process of being cuffed) is when the police officers decided that it was "necessary" to play tug of war with him.
I don't think that Monta really helps you here either, the Warriors suspended him for 30 games and that was it. They attempted to leave their options open in terms of tacking on more punishments but of course, were hit by an appeal on punishing the same crime twice. But look at the timing there, their punishment of Monta was immediate but they went with the much lesser punishment rather than voiding his contract despite the fact he was in clear violation of article 12. Same was the case for Radmonovic and these were contracts that were a metric ton larger than what the Hawks owe Thabo. Does that make sense to you that teams didn't bother with the nuclear option with far more egregious actions and potentially crippling deals but the Hawks would seriously undertake it with this?
That is just another area where your case is weak, beyond that you would only be able to do as you say if your belief that the arrest wast first) justified and second) Thabo engaged in actions to get himself hurt while under arrest. Simply being in the situation where you are getting arrested can't be a part of your reasoning because of Pero Antic. Yup, the other "selfish" guy that was arrested. Did Pero face any fines? Did Pero face any suspensions? Did Pero get told to stay home until the case is resolved? Did Pero even get benched for a game? A quarter? The answers are no, he didn't receive any punishment just for being arrested so it is then hard to say that Thabo is deserving of punishment simply because he happened to get arrested and then hurt. It's a bit of a leap to say "well you weren't really wrong up until the moment you got hurt, now you really were wrong all along. Give us our money back"
Your analogies just really fall flat. Comparing coaches to players? Nope. Comparing players to Joe Schmoe? Nope. Ice cream? definitely not, when you decided to fully guarantee a NBA contract you essentially bought it while staring at a neon sign blazing above the menu saying "all sales are final". You can't demand your money back unless you manage to make and win a case with the FDA that you were indeed intentionally not being sold ice cream at all. You're not going to win this case in the court of public opinion either because, uhm, which is a bigger factor for Joe Schmoe these days, entitled athletes or police brutality? What kind of message do you think it potentially sends that it doesn't even matter how much money a person has that he could still face grave injury by the police even for committing what amounts to jaywalking? What message does it send that his employer would then fire him for it?
Lastly, I believe you are WAY wrong on how the NBAPA would react. The guaranteed contract is a cornerstone of their existence, to think they'd fear setting a precedent of protecting guys who just so happened to get arrested while allowing the owners to liberally void the deals of players just for getting arrested is way off the mark. I'd imagine that coach Budenholzer would start sweating too knowing that he has a DUI arrest hanging around or are we only going to go after players/coaches and invoke clauses when we feel they can't still benefit the team? Rape charges? Nope, no fear of voiding, you can still drop 30ppg. Injuring yourself during a vehicular homicide for which you served actual jail time? No, you're a key contributor on a contender. Simply being arrested isn't enough. Getting injured also isn't enough. Thabo's injury hasn't been classified by anyone as even being remotely career threatening. If he comes back the next season a step slower, can you factually attribute that solely to his injury and not just natural athletic deterioration?
No, my friend, once you're able to look past the "selfish" act of getting arrested you'll find that this is a far more complicated matter than what you are proposing.
?? You are not a victim because you got arrested; you are not absolved from your wrongs because you were wronged in turn. I'm am not sure which point you are making in calling Thabo a victim that should be blameless but both are actually more than a bit worrisome that member/s of society would actually think that they are remotely valid philosophical beliefs so forth legal ones.
For the 1st point, I think your definition of a "justified" arrest would differ from much of the persons within law enforcement and, in this case, would most likely have been justified to society as a whole if not for some random stranger with a camera phone with video functionality in the wee hours of the morning. The thing you are consistently failing to realize is that the police weren't on the scene as part of a normal routine; they were there because of a violent crime had been committed in which they were investigating. This isn't a case where a bored traffic officer decided to pull someone over because he didn't like how someone looked; this was a case where a group of officer's were trying to protect potential evidence at the crime scene for a violent crime. If the officer felt that, left unchecked, the actions of Thabo or Pero could contribute to the inability to investigate and/or prosecute the crime effectively (for whatever reason/s), then the arrest would be justified in the minds of the officers; as noted above, the point I made without being refuted that Thabo would most likely be guilty without the video evidence of his being assaulted would have actually justified the arrest to society as a whole as Thabo would then be a convicted criminal. This is actually the #1 reason that I would say that Pero's and Thabo's decision to remain at the scene was selfish - and no, the act of getting arrested is not selfish in and of itself, but in this case, as with most that result in arrest, there are action/s and/or decision/s that are selfish that are key decision points that lead up to the arrest. A sensible person should understand that, given the circumstances, the bar for the justification of law enforcement to make an arrest is appreciable lowered so by simply remaining at the scene, both are making a decision - whether conscious or no - that puts himself in a situation where the expectation getting arrested is heightened. (Again, not saying he did what he's accused of, but he would have been guilty of it - this is a not so subtle truth of the legal system. If he gets off, it has everything to do with the video that some stranger shot on the street of NYC at 4 AM and nothing to do with what happened inside the club which ended up with both Thabo and Pero being detained.) Further, if you want to throw names around, I have to say that any other view of this is just being an Enabler in that both were clearly putting themselves over the desires of society as a whole which prefers to let police do the job of arresting violent criminals and would give some leeway in this act.
The problem with the 2nd point is that Thabo was arrested 1st - or, at least, detained and the police had made the decision to arrest him - and hence, Thabo was a criminal 1st and anything that happened up to that point would necessarily be completely separate from anything that happened after. Is it victim blaming to blame Pero for getting arrested (which I have made clear that I do place blame on him)? How is Pero a victim? Because he was arrested? By this logic any law enforcement personnel can never do his/her job - even to remove serial murderers from the street since means the murder is a victim for being arrested. To further your thought, many other questions come to bear as well: how long after an arrest can a person all the sudden become a victim and would be absolved from his crime? If "Bob" was arrested for murder "Joe" then Bob is beaten up / killed / raped in jail a few months later, then are you really saying that it's victim blaming to say that Bob shouldn't have killed Joe in the first place? How about after conviction and the subsequent issue happened in prison? Further, if we consider other extreme scenarios, the argument becomes even more ridiculous. If a guy has a hostage and is shot by police to end the standoff, then would you say that it's victim blaming to say that the guy shouldn't have taken a hostage just because he got shot? Another case: say that a father finds out that a 20's something guy showed his toddler kid a hard core pornographic film (which is apparently a misdemeanor in FLA). Your argument would be that me saying that the 20 something guy probably got what he deserved when the Dad went over and beat his @ss would be victim blaming. I find it very hard to think that any rational and law-abiding person would see either as victim blaming here, yet your argument is very clear in saying that it would be in all cases. Whereas in both cases, the subsequent action is regrettable (and even criminal in the 2nd case - as with the case with Thabo, two wrongs don't make a right), the fact is that the "victim" in both cases made decisions and actions to that make him a criminal 1st before any subsequent actions and most would see the true victim as the one taken hostage (in the 1st case) or the toddler who somehow ended up in the hands of the pervert (in the 2nd). Regardless of how far you wish to stick your head in the sand and insist that Thabo was just an innocent bystander who was completely harmless, the truth is that, in all probability, he wasn't. Either a) he did the actions that got him arrested (which, regardless of how much you - and Thabo - want to insist this isn't what happened, is actually the most likely scenario) or b) he did something that didn't necessarily cross the line but he had still left himself in a situation where there was a higher likelihood that he wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt (i.e., hanging out in an area where the police were attempting to gather evidence for a possible recent felony had occurred) and anything that happened after the/se action/s is completely separate... and yes, the action/s and/or decision/s here are blatantly selfish and driven by nothing more than hedonism.
There is one point I've come to see while writing this that I'll just put here for a lack of a better place: a lot of your views is based permissiveness due to technicality as with the paragraph above. The problem with that is that, while you might get off legally, it doesn't absolve you from the consequences of your action/s and decision/s leading up to, in this case, the crime. In effect, you are actually defining morality what is legal and that is a slippery slope. Whereas I don't particularly care if the actions of Thabo or Pero are moral or not, I would find it worrisome that the rationale behind the decision would be based on whether they got off this crime or not. I know that you'd insist that this is wrong, but if you actually take it until the logically ends, this view would mean that you would actually have to legislate morality since you'd actually need a judge to call something wrong since you can always claim a technicality against a socially accepted set of mores and you always end up in two or more groups - the side/s that accept the technicality and the side/s that don't.
Before moving on, there are some more not-so-subtle thing to put out here. One, I made the point earlier that Coach Bud is management and that stands here. Members of management are not member of the NBPA, and hence, the terms of employment would not be covered under the CBA. This makes any analogy to Coach Bud and his arrest, while perhaps interesting, completely and utterly moot. 2nd, just because an entity has the right to do something does not necessarily mean that the entity is obligated to do it. For instance, we still had to inform the league last week that we were going to swap picks with BRK in this year's draft. A slam dunk decision to be sure, but we did have the right to decline to exercise the option. In fact, the entire reason for this debate stems from my question as to whether we should enact a fairly standard clause or not (albeit the corollary ? you raise as to whether it is applicable is valid - more later). 3rd, there are typically morality clauses in contracts but I don't see how that is on the table here. If Javaris Crittenton had been under contract when he pled guilty to murder, then I'm sure a team could have gotten out of his contract. Still, I don't see that as being on the table here - at least not anymore. (Although I would say that if the bar for enacting the clause is as low as this case, then that would be an exceptionally low bar. I'm not one that believes that an athlete has to be a role model and upstanding member of society, so I think the you'd have to prove yourself as a menace to society before I'd consider invoking this clause.)
Moving on, I think I made it *very* clear that, if such an action came to pass, the decision wouldn't and shouldn't be about whether one would feel the need to punish Thabo. The entire rationale for exercising the clause would strictly be to protect the Hawks interests in that we would be paying for services from an entity that would not be able to provide the services that we are paying for through no fault of our own. I really don't know why you are so obstinate in accepting this point, but it makes it very clear as to why you don't punish Pero for the same actions, since 1) no one with the Hawks is punishing Thabo for being arrested or being hit with a baton in the ankle and 2) Pero isn't injured in an action that the Hawks had no part in. Now, sure, I would think that this sequence of events would make me question Pero's decision making ability as well as his leadership which in turn could affect how much I'd offer - if anything - in FA, but in all honesty, if this is the 1st time these are called into question then I'd be more likely to question my ability to gather needed facts before making $M decisions. Egregious decision making such as these typically aren't a 1 time event and I'd want to see the pattern of bad decision-making before a rationale decision on my side could be made.
Whereas I agree that the NBPA would have a case (not necessarily one they would win, but a case nonetheless), the problem is that I think Thabo and even the NBPA heads would agree that a move in this direction would be clearly a "penny-wise/pound-foolish" move. Why injure a) Thabo's (and perhaps Pero's) ability to gain employment in the NBA down the road, b) Thabo's case against the NYPD, and c) the NBPA's public image when you can gain in all these areas - or at least not lose - doing something else? Again, remember that just because an entity can do something does not make them obligated to actually do it. We should also note that there would be no contractual precedence for the CBA if this isn't brought to arbitration so it's not like the NBPA would necessarily limit themselves when the next guy in a similar situation comes along. I guess the NBPA could bring the case against the Hawks (I've seen bigger entities do more injurious actions to themselves in instances where the case was weaker) but I would also call those actions incredibly, incredibly stupid since they do more harm than good not only to the NBPA but also to the person that the NBPA is supposed to protect. Maybe the NBPA really is that shortsighted, but I somehow doubt it.
The last couple of points within the debate are actually the most valid. With Radmanovich and Monta, we can see that, in both cases, the actions of the team was actually punitive. The teams were able to leverage the existence of the clause in order to ensure that the player wouldn't object to the punitive actions they felt would be in the team's better interest. In Monta's case, GSW suspended him for the length of the period he was out so they didn't have to pay him while he was out but still retained his contract once he was again healthy; with Radmanovic, they just decided to fine him what probably amounted to the time he would miss. In both cases, there was a reasonable expectation of full recovery though and I still haven't seen anything conclusive on Thabo's injury (I've seen speculation, but nothing medically concrete). I think it is now clear that a) this clause does exist in NBA contracts so it would be a reasonable assumption that it would exist in one from the Atlanta Hawks, and b) there is at least an implied consent that the clause is enforceable since neither player in the cases cited insisted on objecting to the punitive actions of the team. The problem here is that I don't think we should take any punitive action against Thabo; we should strictly be looking to protect our interest in the case where Thabo can't provide what he sold to the Hawks' brass. Hence, while I think the clause exists and has been used in the NBA as a hammer, it hasn't actually been exercised - at least not in these scenarios. With Thabo, the only thing I put on the table is whether we should consider is, if the damage is bad enough, whether to exercise the clause or not.
The second one to cover here: is there a time component to exercising the clause? I think there most definitely is, but I do think that we haven't passed it. I mean, sure, we can't allow Thabo to play for 82 games next season then all the sudden decide that "eh, he wasn't what we expected" and then attempt to exercise the clause. OTOH, I would think that us saying "we like Thabo and would prefer to keep him at the price we have negotiated pre-injury and might be willing to forego exercising this clause even if there is a slight degradation of performance due to the injury - hence, we want to do some due diligence before doing anything rash" is a perfectly valid and reasonable expectation IMO. Since we are paying him, there is no loss on Thabo's part and hence no tort. At the very least, there would need to be a loss, real or imagined, between the time of the injury and the eventual release (obviously, the release itself would be a loss so that would necessarily be excluded) before the action of due diligence becomes at issue. Personally, I'd think that waiting until player transaction can happen after the playoffs would mean that the time component has ended since it at least leaves room for the argument that we didn't release Thabo for the inability to perform due to injury, but instead, because we could have had discussions about player acquisition that we prefer to Thabo. Making a decision based on anything than Thabo and his ability to perform is obviously impermissible and a gross misuse of the clause so even if this might have been the case, then that would put us in a bind if we did attempt to exercise the clause.
Last, the system of using analogies as I have put on the table are typically of both law and philosophy. The conversation devolves rapidly from interesting to tiresome for when the rebuttals are basically a dismissal of a point without actual rationale - and even more off-putting to put analogies on me that you actually started and are still using. When you've put analogies on the table (e.g., Coach Bud's arrest), I attempted to illustrate why this isn't applicable (out of many valid reasons, I chose Management vs. Labor and have now extended this to say that the CBA would not cover the contract agreement because of this difference). To dismiss analogies and any deeper points without any rationale looks more like you're agreeing with the points of the analogy since you won't put out why you actually disagree with the analogy, it only stands to reason that the apparently sophomoric response to to the realization that your points don't stand up to scrutiny is to dismiss the points that you can't fit into your argument (the classic "don't let facts get in the way of a good argument" is similar to this attitude). Further, to tack into analogies situation that are simultaneously not always valid as well as easily refuted illustrates the "permissiveness by technicality" that I refer to earlier as well. For instance, even though you scream for the ice cream analogies has a sign that I didn't illustrate magically means the analogy isn't valid. But in fact, your tack on is easily dismissed in both analogies I've put forth - in the one, since it actually agrees with the larger point of the analogy; in the other, by simply allowing me to tack on that the situation where the person has given the money but hadn't accepted the ice cream yet and hence, the sale transaction has not been completed so can't final. If you wish to debate, then read the points and respond to them in at least a somewhat adult manner. Throwing names out and dismissing points with nothing more than what amounts to an "I say so and that's all anyone should care about" is only for those with simple minds and I have to believe that you're better than that.
