Way to be consistent, David Stern.

I wanted to criticize David Stern before this suspension came out, but I wanted it to be official. Horry gets a 2 game suspension, and Amare and Diaw each get one game. The NBA, several years ago, decided to come up with this rule that basically states that if you're on the bench and a fight breaks out and you step onto the court, you get an automatic one game suspension.

First, let me give you the prevailing argument for the suspension, then I'll explain why it's wrong. People say that you need to be consistent with suspensions. If you let Amare off the hook, how could you suspend someone later for coming off the bench? I understand that argument, but it's not accurate, it's not fair, and they need to change this rule, or at least the way they enforce it.

How do you enforce it in a future incident if you don't suspend Amare? That's easy. If players have a normal reaction to a fight, then remember (or have coaches help them remember) the rule and go right back to the bench without escalating the conflict or having any contact with players on court, then don't suspend them. Otherwise, you have the right to suspend them (assuming you actually want to keep this rule at all, which I don't).

Now let me tell you why this decision can potentially hurt the NBA. In playoff basketball, when you play the same team several times in a row, it would be beneficial to have a non-contributing player with no other purpose than to start fights. If some unimportant player on your team, (aka Robert Horry), decides to toss a player to the floor and can get a 3 second reaction from any player on the opposing bench (aka Amare and Diaw) then you win. The opposing team loses two good players for one game and your team loses one crappy player for two games. I know most head coaches aren't smart, but they can all figure this one out. I'm not saying this is what Horry or the Spurs had in mind with this play, but I can't completely rule it out either. That's beside the point, though. The point is, the team that was clearly in the wrong is being rewarded.

This goes way beyond sending in a "goon" to start a fight with the opposing team's best player, because in that circumstance, the player being attacked would have to throw a punch or participate in the fight in some way to warrant an ejection. These guys have been punished, essentially, for taking 3 more steps than they should have. According to the league, those 3 steps are worse than kicking an opposing players Achilles or kneeing the opposing player in the nuts.

During a similar situation in the second quarter, when a player from the Spurs dunked and landed on a player from the Suns, they got tangled up and it looked like it could escalate, Tim Duncan got up from the bench and took a few steps onto the court. How can you punish Amare for taking a few extra steps and not Duncan? Probably for the same reason that if Duncan gets ejected for laughing about a call, the ref gets fired. But if a ref ejects Baron Davis for clapping at no one in particular there's no punishment for the ref. I'm not saying that Duncan should be suspended, and I'm not saying that the ref that ejected him didn't deserve what he got. What I am saying is, Amare should not be suspended either, and the ref that ejected Baron Davis should've been punished.