As Stern knows, you can't have it both ways

By Tim McManus
The Phanatic Magazine

David Stern is taking some serious heat for the suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, especially after the Suns proved they were one body short of being up 3-2 instead of the other way around.

Indeed, the players' actions ended up being harmless in the grand scheme of things, and the Spurs gained a definite advantage.

Funny, though, that in an era that will be defined as a moral awakening in sports, that there should be such a backlash for enforcing the rules. To condemn the decision altogether is nothing short of hypocritical.

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When Roger Goodell took over for Paul Tagliabue, many wondered how his tenure would be defined. After all, he was succeeding a man that shepherded the NFL to national prominence -- the key figure of a sport that grew at an unimaginable speed, until it dwarfed even the most sacred of pasttimes.

How could that be topped?

It has become clear that Goodell's reign will not be dipped with ritz. Instead, it will be about re-instilling a code of conduct that was shed during the race to the peak.

Somewhere in the transformation from popular to superstar, NFL players started becoming more like Randy Moss and less like Jerry Rice. There was a fundamental shift -- aided by free agency and the advertising boom -- that steadily made the sport less about the team and more about the individual.

Soon many of the players took on an heir of invincibility, a trait that -- combined with absurd amounts of money -- led to more and more unruly behavior.

Things reached a boiling point this past season, between the slew of Cincinnati Bengals getting arrested to Tank Johnson's arsenal to Albert Haynesworth's violent stomping. Then, of course, Pacman Jones was part of an incident that paralyzed a man.

The result was an overwhelming public outcry for change.

Goodell's fate was sealed, and the clean-up process began.

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In baseball, the clean-up is of a different sort.

You know the story by now, how America's pasttime was wilting as a result of the 1994 strike, how Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's chase and capture of the single-season home run record resuscitated the sport, and how everyone involved pretty much knew that many MLB players were juiced to the gills.

And like the NFL, fans, players and authorities alike were having way too much fun to call off the party in the name of scrutiny.

Soon the issue became too overt and uncomfortable, though, making it impossible to ignore. And with the all-time home run record about to be falsely claimed as well, MLB and its followers began scrambling to assume a stance on the morally correct side of things.

Like football, the pendulum swung as far as fans would allow, and it's now being pushed back the other way.
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In the NBA, the tipping point was the Ron Artest brawl.

With millions of dollars and a social divide separating the two, fan and NBA athlete started drifting further and further apart. When the "Malice at the Palace" occurred, it was a clear-cut sign that little common respect remained, and that a major overhaul in both presentation and policy was needed.

In response, Stern levied the harshest penalties in league history.

"The line is drawn, and my guess is that won't happen again -- certainly not by anybody who wants to be associated with our league," Stern said.

To ensure that something of that nature doesn't happen again, Stern has diligently implemented and/or enforced various guidelines. He put in a dress code to create a classier setting, and made sure that when a player violated a rule that he was duly reprimanded for it.

And the NBA continues its trip back to the middle behind the will of the fan.

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In all three cases -- in the NFL, MLB and NBA alike -- the crackdown on poor behavior has been more than welcomed. By and large, the fans are glad that off-field incidents are bringing punishment; that steroid use is being condemned; and that safety and accountability in-game is a priority.

Unless, of course, it messes with Game 5.

When Stern bristled on the Dan Patrick show yesterday, he was reacting to this very hypocrisy:

So you want me to just completely dismiss a rule that's in place for the protection of both fan and athlete? You cry for the sport to be cleaned up, then whine when discipline is enforced?

And he has a valid point. With the major sports in general and basketball in particular, you have asked for a firmer hand to get things back to how you once knew it. You want your players to be clean and the rules to be enforced, and enforced sharply.

With conduct deemed out of control, you have drawn a line.

Two players crossed it.

Tim appears on this page every Thursday. You can contact him at tmcmanus@phanaticmag.com