Saturday, January 12, 2008

Overdoing It

The NBA has outdone itself again. They are going to replay the last 51.9 seconds of a Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks game. The scoring table said Shaquille O'Neal had fouled out with 6 fouls at this point when in fact it was only his 5th. This is the first time since 1982 that the NBA has replayed a game.

This has to be one of the weirdest decisions that David Stern has made. I think this is in response to the whole referee fiasco of last year. The game must be fair and determined by play only! Now if you have ever played sports, then I know that you have been involved in bad calls. You either correct them immediately or you more likely just move on. These calls usually tend to balance out over the long run. The thing that you do not do is continue on and then weeks later redo part of the game. This is unheard of by me. Basketball more than almost any other current sport is all about momentum. Teams constantly go on a 12 point run and then give up a 12 point run. It's all about the energy and emotions and being in the groove. So abstracting out a minute portion of the game to replay at a different time makes no sense whatsoever. I know the boys in Vegas are going to love this scenario.

Bad call commish...

1 comment:

III said...

I love it.

The existence reviewing calls via instant replay stands on this same principle: getting it right. Are you fundamentally against instant replay?

Some things you can't correct. This you can. I suppose you could say that Commissioner Stern is letting the ideology of the Serenity Prayer guide his judgment.

The big "What If..." to me is what happens if Shaq isn't healthy whenever this game is scheduled to be finished? The whole principle of this deal resides on the attempt to push the reset button on a wrong that was done to the Heat in that situation. If he's injured & can't play, what then?

It is certainly an unorthodox decision. There are games in other sports where things like this happen. I immediately recall a game between Vanderbilt & Florida in the Swamp in '05 where Vandy was ROBBED on a phantom penalty that completely changed the fortunes late in the game (Vandy made a stop on 4th down in the 4th quarter & was going to win... ref threw a late flag for a penalty that the camera's showed didn't happen, and it wasn't even close... first down Florida, and they scored the winning touchdown within the next few plays).