Why Stern Was Wrong to Fine the Spurs

Putting the team first is a punishable offense in today's NBA.

The San Antonio Spurs were fined $250K by David Stern for resting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green prior to the end of six-game, nine-day road trip, in which the Spurs were playing four road games in five days. The main reason why? The game was against the NBA's sweetheart of a team, the Miami Heat.

Had it not been against the huge-market Heat, no fine would have been levied. How can I be so sure of this? Well, in April of last season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did exactly the same thing, sitting Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili against the Golden State Warriors. There was no subsequent response from the league. But Stern sure provided one yesterday, in a questionable attempt to justify his uncalled for action:

The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.

The Spurs’ actions were in violation of a league policy, reviewed with the NBA Board of Governors in April 2010, against resting players in a manner contrary to the best interests of the NBA.

Here's his translation: We love Miami. Its "fan base" brings in loads of cash for our league. How dare you sabotage a game on TNT where they even put Charles Barkley on the broadcast team, all because you wanted to rest your aging players who were playing their fourth game in five days in the best interest of your team?

If he has a problem about the game's competitiveness, he shouldn't. The final game was 105-100, Miami. The game was competitive, but it was role players that made it so, not "superstars," which is why Stern is ticked off. Would he have done this had the Spurs bench won? His problem isn't a question regarding integrity of the game, but rather that the goofball bandwagon Miami fans didn't get to see all the superstars they paid to. (Stern probably doesn't even care about the integrity of the game, which is evident in the coddling of the league's "superstars," which is a topic for another time.)

The NBA, under Stern's guidance, is turning into more of a production and less of a sport, eerily similar to the WWF.

What Popovich did was simply in the best interest of his team, which he has led to four championships. His job is to run the Spurs in a way that allows them to contend year after year.

He should also be allowed control over HIS team. It's not David Stern's team. The coach, in a normal circumstance, is the man who decides players' playing time. It's tyrannical that Stern grants himself this power, in a similar fashion to when he vetoed the Chris Paul to the Lakers deal.

The commish is picking the wrong fight, as well. The man who's paying the fine, Spurs owner Peter Holt, was an instrumental figure in ending the lockout as head of the NBA's Board of Governors. He's been one of Stern's most helpful allies.

If Stern keeps acting so recklessly, he won't have any left.

What if Kobe Gets to Seven?

The NBA's greatest player of all time is pretty much undisputed. If you know what a basketball looks like you probably know it is Michael Jordan. His biography on NBA.com states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."

There's no use getting into his stats; we already know what kind of player he was and how he revolutionized the game of basketball. And he won six titles.

1991. 1992. 1993. 1996. 1997. 1998. Michael Jordan's Bulls, supported by Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and others, achieved basketball dynasty status. Jordan, as any avid NBA fan would know, won the Finals MVP all six times.

Would Jordan still be regarded as the best ever had he only won, say, two titles? No doubt he would still be considered in the class of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and others. But would he be regarded as the singular greatest ever, in a category he shares with himself?

Probably not. Actually, definitely not.

Of course, Michael Jordan was as great a regular season player as anyone. But what defined him was his performances in the Finals: the 1997 "Flu Game," the 1993 Finals where he averaged a record 41 a game against Charles Barkley and the Suns....and so on.

So what am I getting at? Well, here is Kobe Bryant, who many consider the closest this generation will ever come to watching another Michael Jordan, sitting at five titles (one less than MJ), with three or so years left in the league on an always competitive Lakers team.

Don't mistake this as me calling Kobe Jordan's equal. What I am saying, though, is if Kobe can find a way to win another title (or two), his already legendary legacy would take a jump into Jordan's range.

But they would never be equals. Of Kobe Bryant's five championships, he has won the MVP Award in two of them. The other three were won by a fellow by the name of Shaquille O'Neal, who you might've heard of.

Jordan, with Scottie Pippen as Robin, won the Bill Russell Finals MVP Award all six times. That alone should anoint MJ untouchable status in basketball history.

Kobe may be statistically comparable for his career. Jordan does have the edge by a margin, but Kobe is up there. And in terms of revolutionizing the game, MJ beat the Black Mamba to it.

Let's just put it this way though. If Kobe finishes his career with five championships, (the way things are looking right now), that would be perfect regarding his comparison with Jordan. The way it should be.

How to Fix the Dunk Contest

DeMar DeRozan stated it best a year ago, when he campaigned against props that have taken over the dunk contest. The best pure dunker in the field of Serge Ibaka, Blake Griffin, JaVale McGee and himself, DeRozan was eliminated after the first round, probably because he didn't use any props: gospel choruses, Kias, teddy bears...

"There's no telling what might happen next year," DeRozan said. "Someone might use a trampoline."

Well, that didn't happen, but there was a motorcycle to jump over, a camera attached to eventual winner Jeremy Evans' ear, and a glow-in-the dark jersey (the only one that was actually kind of cool). Also included in this year's contest, rated an "F" by over 35% of SportsNation, was corny dialogue prior to practically every dunk.

There was also P Diddy proclaiming "black power" after stating his favorite sports movie was White Men Can't Jump before Chase Budinger's first attempt. I'll let you be the judge.

Honestly, I wouldn't care about all this garbage, if the dunks were actually impressive. This year, only one really stood out: Evans' two-ball alley-oop slam. Budinger, Paul George and Derrick Williams were all disappointments.

Oh, and Blake Griffin jumping over the car last year wasn't any good either.

It's just frustrating as a fan when TeamFlightBrothers on YouTube feature hundreds of slams that completely blow the NBA dunk contest away.  

Another problem: the contestants. It pains me to hate on these role guys, but when there was a graphic saying Chase Budinger had registered six dunks all season, well, yeah.

As Charles Barkley stated, LeBron and those other superstars need to "get off their butts" and get into the dunk contest.

I hate LeBron. And I don't like most of the other NBA superstars either. But their participation would make for a better contest from a fan's perspective. I don't need to explain why. Or at least get legitimate dunkers back out there, such as DeRozan, Andre Iguodala, maybe a John Wall.

And get rid of those stupid props.