Devon was knocked out of the air and landed super hard on his shoulder today but luckily x-rays were negative. Is it time for the NBA to look at rules about knocking people out of the sky? Two near disastrous injuries in a week, I think this needs to be addressed. Thoughts?
Yeah. Agreed. Its an unnecessary thing to be doing. If they are gonna let that happen, then they may as well let fighting occur too, so players can either retaliate or think twice about taking a cheap shot.
Camby's foul wasn't malicious in anyway. He simply went for the block, but missed and caught Harris' arm. Ultimately, what caused the injury was the fall, not the foul. If the league does take action like you're intimating, there will be no more blocks at the rim.
Clear path violations were not generally malicious, but the rule was put in place to prevent people from having their legs broken and their teeth ground into the floor. IMHO if you can't hit the ball, you shouldn't be hitting people in the air. I understand where you are coming from about blocks, but this is no less dangerous than other fouls they have put in to protect players. I am not insinuating the block was malicious, only that the result was once again, dangerous.
Depends. This is a high flying league and people are just going to get hurt. If it's a complete cheap shot, like on Rudy, with clear intent to injure, the player should be severely punished. Otherwise, it's just a part of the game.
I don't think "clear path" violations had anything to do with safety. The rule was put in to prevent a player from committing an intentional foul to prevent a fast break basket. You foul from behind just past mid-court and instead of the player getting a basket, it's side-out-of-bounds. Easy way to prevent a transition hoop, so they removed the ability to do that because it wasn't skill and didn't make the game better.
Rudy Fernandez missed two games completely and was clearly still injured today because of a Flagrant 2 foul by DB Ariza. Arize isn't fined and misses no games, and Portland struggles by missing a player who adds instant offense off of the bench. Nate should teach his team to clobber players on the break.
The only reason the league has let this slide is that Kobe or Lebron haven't been seriously injured yet. If that had been Kobe hitting the floor after getting knocked down by Batum it would have been handled differently.
I don't get why everyone wants Harris so badly to be a Blazer. Yeah he's a young, good charactered guy, but we're not exactly looking for a scoring PG which is exactly what Harris is. And because he's an All-Star now, we'd have to give a crapload of talent to Jersey for him and then it just wouldn't be worth it. We have enough offense on this team. We need a PG that can defend and distribute and I don't think Harris is that guy if we're going to have to give away equal talent. Either way, the Nets aren't going to give this guy up for nobody.
I still think Camby and Ariza should both be suspended a game just because regardless of intent, Harris and Fernandez weren't in positions to defend themselves at all.
I was thinking after Rudy's hard fall that the league should look into inserting a rubberized surface in a section of the floor directly behind each basket. They make full courts out of the stuff and it's firm enough to not have a ridge to trip on, yet still enough give to cushion landings noticeably. Most hard landings occur in a pretty confined area... It wouldn't take much of an insert to help minimize many of them.
Seeing Harris get hit out of the air reminded me of when he pulled a similar move in the playoffs a few years back: [video=youtube;lLavoaV0b68]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLavoaV0b68[/video] Make sure to watch for Harris' left arm after he gets blocked; he clearly grabs and pulls J-Rich to the ground. The best view is on the last replay of the above video. You can also see JR look at him like "WTF was that?" as he runs back to the play. I have zero remorse for him. Also can't stand how he always acts like hes in insane pain then gets up and plays at 100% 30 seconds later. Dude is hands down the biggest vag in the league.
Completely disagree. What the league needs to do is install a pit with punji sticks behind the basket. That would keep everyone under control and on their toes. barfo