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Pistons sink Warriors

Mar 30, 2002 1:34 PM EST

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Golden State Warriors, Detroit Pistons

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Be honest, how fair is today's NBA? We have 'superstar calls' which favor a certain team over another out of sheer presence. A call could go one way or another depending on who your name is or what team you play for. Just ask Byron Russell of the Utah Jazz or Pacer Brad Miller and they’ll tell you.

There is some inconsistency on the basketball court that can be accepted. For starters different referees could call identical scenarios differently out of differences in opinion, and they also have to make a decision in a split second minus the luxury of instant replay like us folks at home.

But this is just one side of the NBA, and should the punishment department of NBA headquarters receive the same benefit of the doubt? They have time to review incidents many times over from many different angles, having discussions before drawing conclusions. Do they use precedents to help form the basis of their outcomes, or are their conclusions purely case by case?

It is inconsistencies in this area which has Peter Vecsey of the New York Post up in arms in his latest column. Stu Jackson, the ex-Grizzlies head man who morphed into the NBA‘s Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations, is the person who hands out the punishments to players. He has been far from consistent.

Take last week’s game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons for instance. With 1:16 left in the Pistons win over the Pacers, Detroit up by 22 at the time, Corliss Williamson drives baseline past center Brad Miller. Jermaine O’Neal comes over to help, banged hard into Williamson and was called for the flagarant foul. O’Neal caught Williamson’s leg and hip on the way down, preventing him from falling and hurting himself, but Corliss still took exception to the contact and proceeded to throw the ball hard at O’Neal from only a few feet away in retaliation. The ball hit O’Neal on the shoulder, and he couldn't believe what had just happened. The result: O’Neal confronted Williamson and Pistons peacemakers Ben Wallace and Michael Curry, while a Pacers trio of Jonathan Bender, Bruno Sundov and Primoz Brezec all left the bench.

Jermaine O’Neal was fined $10,000 and was suspended two games for his part in the altercation, while Bender, Sundov and Brezec all received $5,000 fines and 1 game suspensions for leaving the bench. Williamson? He received a $5,000 fine and no loss of court time despite sparking the controversy with his reaction. Had he not thrown the ball at O’Neal the chances are that Jermaine would have been accessed with the flagarant and both teams would have proceeded as if nothing happened.

The major points here? Ball thrown at player, no suspension. Vecsey takes a look at the other projectile related suspensions in the NBA this season then summarizes the punishment scale which he refers to as ‘Jackson Justice’:

• Throw a TV on the floor in the direction of no one in particular and you get suspended two games and fined $10,000 • Flick a wad of gum and get one game and a fine • Hurl a fully inflated basketball at an opponent five feet away and you lose $5,000 in chump change but no court time

Sound fair? It all comes down to one word, inconsistency, although there may be another extremely powerful word that Jackson has now exposed. That word, of course, is precedent.

To be consistent and fair Jackson should now treat each ball-throwing incident just as he has for the Williamson-O’Neal fiasco, regardless of the ramifications.

We can see it now. Shaq fouls player. Player throws ball at Shaq. Shaq retaliates, opening up a suspension possibility. Player is fined $5,000 but misses no games. Who needs Hack-a-Shaq when you can eliminate him all together? The precedent has now been set folks, so it may not be as far fetched as you think.

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General Basketball, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers

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Postell Backs up Talk

Mar 28, 2002 5:35 AM EST

By calling himself a future All-Star, saying he was as good as Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston, and all but begging for the opportunity to someday guard Kobe Bryant, the Knicks' Lavor Postell created a bit of an uproar before last night's game.

Chris Broussard writes that his teammates, particularly Sprewell, Houston and Mark Jackson, ridiculed him mercilessly on the team bus. MSG Network devoted a pregame segment to the bombastic comments he made Monday, and Postell, finding no humor in the Knicks' ribbing, was unusually despondent before taking the court for warm-ups.

But over the next three hours, the jokes turned to cheers, the mockery became respect, and Postell's image went from that of a young knucklehead to a one-game hero with potential.

Doubling his previous career best and hitting a clutch 3-pointer in the final moments, Postell scored a game-high 20 points in 22 minutes to help lead the Knicks to an 89-82 victory over the playoff-bound Detroit Pistons at the Palace.

"I made a statement in the papers and I backed it up," said Postell, 24, who made his comments after shooting 1 for 7 in Monday's loss to Denver. "That's in the past. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. But this is a great group of guys. They made fun of me, but they still supported me. They were like, `Young fella, don't make statements like that because it'll come back to haunt you.' I meant what I said. But I'll never do it again."

The victory and Postell's performance created a sense of joy in a Knicks locker room that has often been dismal after games this season. Sprewell, one of Postell's closest friends on the team, joked about moving out of the way for the reporters surrounding Postell's locker, and Jackson introduced Postell at his impromptu news conference by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Willie Namath."

"I've been playing this game since third grade," he said. "I'm good at this. I'm here for a reason. I got an opportunity and I took advantage of it."

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New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons