http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2009/0 ... icago.htmlAnyway, we wanted to talk about what the Comp Committee is doing about all this nonsense about flagrant fouls - specifically, defining what the hell constitutes "unnecessary and excessive contact." It's not his job to elucidate anymore, actually. It's Stu Jackson's job as committee chair, and as it so happens, we gave NBA Veep the short shrift in tomorrow's story (found here) because he called too close to deadline. "The upgrades and downgrades have received significant attention in the media," Stu said, "so we thought it would be a good idea to reconfirm and redefine what it is, and provide examples. So we gave them examples, showed them how we evaluated them, and explained why we might have changed them."
Here's what Jackson wants to get across: The rules are a lot more uniform than you think. We'll be damned why a deliberate Dwight Howard elbow to Sam Dalembert's head is a Flagrant 2 while a deliberate Kobe Bryant elbow to Ron Artest's gullet is a Flagrant 1, but he has his reasons.We didn't want him to explain each call. We just wanted him to reiterate (for a hundredth time) why he keeps reversing the ruling on the court, like he did three times in 24 hours the other day -- which is giving fans a reason to feel the league is manipulating the game, and giving the refs reason to think they're more useful than the average houseplant? "Remember, by rule, these types of fouls can be evaluated afterwards - and they should be, because in real time, they're very difficult to assess," Jackson said. "Currently, our rules permit officials to evaluate Flagrant 2s (on the court, via videotape), but even after some review, there can always be a difference of evaluation. That's why we do it."
One example that came up is the Rajon Rondo hit on Brad Miller in Game 5, Bulls-Celts. Anyone with half a brain would say, "Well, no desire to reach for the ball, direct slap at the face, blood, loose teeth, and the aggrieved party was seeing stars when it was over - we'll say it's flagrant." More than half the people on Jackson's committee agreed with that. Stu himself begged to differ, which is why Rondo didn't get tagged. "In our mind, Rajon was making a basketball play," he explained. "It was fairly evident with video replay, that there was a point in that play where he was making a play to the ball. Due to the direction Miller was going in, and where the contact occurred, there was no follow-through hit - as you see in all flagrant fouls."Thorn: "I personally thought it was (a flagrant)."
