Post#3 » by lessthanjake » Thu Sep 7, 2023 8:56 pm
It was a silly decision that the league made to enforce the letter of the law on a rule without regard to the intent of the rule. People saying that it was consistent with how the rule had been enforced in the past aren’t really able to come up with examples of players being suspended where they left the bench and did not participate in a fight in any way. And frankly, if it were consistently enforced like that, then one should be able to come up with a *huge* number of examples of suspensions for it, since it is a common occurrence.
In any event, this is going to get in the weeds of legal analysis basically, but even by the letter of the rule, the NBA did not actually have to suspend them. This is because it did not actually have to define the incident as an “altercation,” or it could have defined Amare and Diaw as having left the bench before an “altercation” began and therefore that the rule didn’t apply in a way that required suspension.
The NBA’s rules don’t define an “altercation” except in one portion of the rules about instant replays, where they define it as being an incident where either “(i) two or more players are engaged in (a) a fight or (b) a hostile physical interaction that is not part of normal basketball play and that does not immediately resolve by itself or with intervention of game officials or players, or (ii) a player, coach, trainer, or other team bench person commits a hostile act against another player, referee, coach, trainer, team bench person, or spectator (including, for example, through the use of a punch, below, kick, blow to the head, shove, or thrown object.”
Was there ever actually an “altercation” here? Part (i) of the definition doesn’t really apply, since there was not actually a “fight.” And the hip check was a hard/flagrant foul but was still “part of a normal basketball play” rather than being some extracurricular activity outside of normal play. Other than the hip check, not much actually happened except (a) Horry getting in Raja Bell’s face and putting his forearm on Bell’s shoulder, and (b) Nash getting up and running at Horry and getting pulled away. It’s debatable whether either of those qualify as a “hostile physical interaction,” but to the extent they did qualify as one, then it’d be hard to truly argue it didn’t “immediately resolve by itself or with intervention of game officials or players,” since the Horry/Bell thing was a very brief interaction, and Nash was immediately pulled away when he ran at Horry. Meanwhile, part (ii) doesn’t really have to apply to the flagrant foul on Nash, since, while a flagrant foul, it is not really a “hostile act” in the way the rule is referring to (it didn’t involve a “bench person” and a “hostile act” is more than a flagrant foul—this wasn’t some physical assault in line with the specific examples given). So then what’s the relevant “hostile act?” Horry putting his forearm on Bell’s shoulder? That doesn’t seem like a truly “hostile act” at the level of the specific examples given. And Nash was obviously pulled away before he committed a “hostile act.”
So the league could’ve ruled that there simply was not an “altercation” at all, in which case the rules on suspensions for leaving the bench “during an altercation” would squarely not apply at all.
But let’s say the league did rule that there was an altercation. There’s two general options for what triggered it being an “altercation.” The first is the hip check itself being an altercation. The second is the post-hip check stuff: i.e. (a) Horry getting in Bell’s face, or (b) Nash running at Horry and being pulled away. As explained above, it’s a tough argument to say that the hip check itself made it an “altercation” within the meaning of the rules. And if that didn’t trigger it and Horry getting in Bell’s face afterwards or Nash running at Horry is what made it an “altercation,” then I believe Amare and Diaw were actually already off the bench when the “altercation” began. And that means it’s not really clear that the rule would squarely apply to them. After all, the rule says that all players not participating in the game “must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench” during an altercation. But what happens if they’re already not in the immediate vicinity of their bench when the altercation begins? This is a grey area in the rule, because the rules’ language about where a player must “remain” clearly presupposes that the player is in the immediate vicinity of the bench when the “altercation” began. It doesn’t contemplate this scenario. While the rule doesn’t actually speak to this scenario, presumably a player that starts outside the bench area would have to go back to the bench area at some point in order to avoid triggering the rule. But it’s not clear what the exact standard for that is. Which means the NBA absolutely could’ve had room within the letter of the rule to say that they began outside the bench area when the “altercation” began and that they went back to the bench area in a quick and orderly enough fashion that the rule didn’t actually apply to them. And given that they did not get involved in a fight and didn’t stay off the bench for long, that wouldn’t be a remotely unreasonable interpretation.
And I’d say that when there’s perfectly reasonable textual interpretations of the rule that would prevent it from being applied in a manner that clearly was not intended (not to mention unfair, given what team was going to benefit from the suspensions), then the NBA should’ve taken one of those interpretations. The fact that it did not is kind of ridiculous to me, and I do think that there’s a good chance it cost the Suns a title.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
