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| Stern feels all slurs are not created equal. |
NBA Spokesman Mark Broussard explained the dollar discrepancy. "Kobe's fine included discipline for verbal abuse of a game official," he said.
Allegedly, both Noah and Kobe used the same hateful word to draw their fines, but Stern is drawing a distinction in the severity of their crimes because of the direction in which the two epithets went. As a result he is essentially saying that not all slurs are equal and that he cares more about his referees than his fans. Everyone who follows the NBA knows that Stern treats any remotely negative comments about officials as if someone had insulted his mother. That's fine, but vile words are vile words, and to whom they are said really doesn't matter (even though the fan who drew Noah's ire is not a sympathetic figure).
Noah's teammate Luol Deng showed why Stern needs to protect fans as he does referees. Commenting on the type of fan behavior Noah faced, Deng said "there's times where a fan like that, honestly I feel like jumping in the crowd and hitting him. We're humans, and the camera is not on that fan at all." Fan speech would ideally be regulated, but it's unrealistic to police 20,000 people to that extent. That means the players just have to control themselves, especially since Deng seems to have forgotten a little event from 2004 - the infamous "Malice at the Palace." Deng didn't say he's going to hit anyone, but in light of the NBA's history of players attacking fans, his statement is pretty disturbing.
Stern needs to step in and show that a slur is a slur, no matter who it's directed at or why it was said. The NBA absolutely doesn't condone homophobia, but it needs to show it by punishing players evenly and severely for these infractions.
I really think $50,000 was a good fine. It's a larger percentage of his salary than the $100,000 was for Kobe. Also, slurring at a ref is much worse. Now the ref dislikes Kobe more, which means he must try not to call any extra fouls on Kobe, but also try not to overcompensate and call too few fouls on Kobe. In a sport where the validity of officiating is already questionable, you don't want anything messing with the ref's head. The fan probably loved it.
ReplyDeleteYelling at a ref is way worse of an offense than yelling at a fan. Fans can be dicks...you need to respect the authority of a ref. This is only the first time that I have disagreed with your hiring and firing. Keep up the good work.
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