After looking at the replays, Odom shouldn't have come off the bench. I hope he gets fined for that. Ariza might get fined but I don't think he should be suspended. I think the Odom move on ROY last year, should have been a suspension as that was much more severe of a hit.
What I expect to happen: Odumb- 1 game: standard rule for leaving the bench during an altercation. Ariza (need a name for this fool)- 2 games: 1 for the idiotic foul, 1 for the way Rudy fell. Roy- some sort of fine Aldridge/Outlaw- also fines, but smaller than Roy's.
What will happen. Odom - Will get suspended. There are no maybe's or probably get suspended, it's definite suspension. If you come off the bench onto the court, by rule it is an automatic suspension Ariza - Ariza may very well not get suspended. I'm pretty sure the league will also change the call from a flagrant 2. In the rules, a Flagrant 2 is intentional. While there is no way to prove intent, I'm sure the league office will view that there was none(much like the Bynumflagrant foul against Wallace earlier in the year). Roy - Didn't do anything. Just some chest bumping and an exchange of kind words, I doubt he gets fined.
This is absolutely notlike Bynums foul. Rudy had a clear path and it was a 30pt game. Ariza was trying to send a message to the Blazers for qhen we meet them in the playoffs. I am pretty sure that Stern sends a clear message that these cheap shots will not be tolerated. Ariza gets 5 games.
The bad news is that the next three Laker opponents are three teams the Blazers are fighting with for play-off position - the Rockets, Spurs and Mavs. So, suspending Odom and Ariza could actually HURTS the Blazers in the standings, but has little affect on the Lakers who are locked into position as the 1 seed. The net affect is the suspensions could hurt the Blazer more than the Lakers. The NBA needs to change the way suspensions are assessed in these cases. The players should be suspended, as per the rules, but they should serve those suspensions the next time the two teams meet - including the play-offs. BNM
We could very well end up being the ones penalized if Rudy is out against Dallas and Odom/Ariza are out against Houston. Edit: Boob beat me by a minute.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3967289 Looks like no suspension for Ariza, but Odom is still being looked at.
Wrong. Intent is proven every day. All you have to do is look at the facts. A foul looks like a foul. Look at what Ariza did though - it was a haymaker, a windmill. That = intent. If he intended to merely foul him, it would look like a foul. Instead, what we have is a player whose team is getting whipped, pissed off that we just stole the ball and were about to go up by 30 with 2 seconds to play in the quarter. He chose to smackdown.
*rolls eyes. Yeah okay. Well it's all moot now. The real interpretation of the rules says nothing about intent anyway. I called it right, Odom got a 1 game suspension while Ariza did not.
