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The next time you watch a fourth-quarter bustle sequence that marked LeBron James' home debut with the LA Lakers on Saturday, take note of the reaction of the Houston Rockets goaltender, James Harden.
At the very beginning. In all, when he was pushed under the basket by the Lakers striker, Brandon Ingram, Harden showed total restraint, manual and veteran. Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul, two other veterans whose mutual contempt has existed for many years, have not done so.
Let's be clear: Rondo is the most guilty of both. Far, a lot more. To spit the face of another person closely is indefensible. It is in play to become the low point of his regular season for the complicated player / personality known as the Rondo Playoff.
But Rondo and Paul, who have his own reputation for his tactics on the field, have and are putting themselves in a position to do something serious after the Lakers striker, Lance Stephenson, has moved Ingram away. from Harden and that the situation seems to have calmed down.
However, they are both lucky. Same for Ingram. The suspensions imposed on Sunday night – four matches for Ingram, three games for Rondo and two games for Paul – could have really (and should) be steeper when you also consider the timeline of all this.
Physical fighting is rare. in the modern NBA Ingram's suspension is the longest in the league for field misconduct since a seven-player player was hired by Metta World Peace – who was at Saturday's game, as a as a spectator – for a vicious nudge at the head of Harden, more than six years ago, in April 2012. [19659002] The scenes of this brawl at the Staples Center were particularly disorienting – not so much because of the gravity blows, but because of the timing. You simply do not expect to see punches in the first week of the regular season.
At the beginning of N.B.A. campaign, just five nights and two of the 82 games in a six-month regular season schedule, Rondo and Paul need to know more. They need to be smarter regardless of their longtime beef, which has been bubbling for at least 2009, when Boston would have planned to trade Rondo for Paul and then with the Hornets.
Clemency would not have been an option for the league office at this stage. the embryonic stage of the season, lest the players move away with the conviction that punches, spit and abuse on the face are faults that can be eliminated.
I was expecting a stronger message with these penalties, especially for Ingram, the chief indexer of all the tension, and Rondo, to spit it out. Not that Paul is irreproachable here. The video confirming that Rondo spit in Paul's face as they bit their mouths will inevitably justify Paul's angry reaction to some of them. But, again, if you look at the slow motion images available on all social media and you take note of Paul's behavior shortly before the spitting the spit, the others will surely say that he's adopted a posture combative which he does not need. 19659002] Paul and Rondo also have previous offenses on their NBA disciplinary files, which are generally a variable used in the calculation of suspensions.
Then there's Ingram
Playing Harden is undeniably frustrating, considering how often the league's most valuable league player wavers and seeks contact in his quest for foul play. So give it to Ingram.
However, Ingram is actually guilty of escalating the tension twice after his initial thrust – first by referee Jason Phillips in a hostile manner, then punching him on his return Scrum around Paul and Rondo after he was taken away from him. A long ban for Ingram was therefore obvious – despite his record virgin.
It was just as clear, even from the chaotic beginning of a saga that was quickly calling #SpitGate on Twitter, that Rondo and Paul could not settle for just suspensions of a match, like in January last, when Serge Ibaka of Toronto and James Johnson of Miami mutinied each other. Far too much has happened here.
Financial success per game is not as important for Ingram ($ 39,704) or Rondo ($ 62,069) as for Paul ($ 245,891), but this is a new setback that Lakers did not see again. need. Not after a 0-2 start in the LeBron era that revealed L.A.'s lack of awareness, as well as his lack of outside shooting and lack of rim protection. James' introduction to the Western Conference has been predictable. Despite all the points won by Ingram, a man of gentle manners, for defending his teammates and himself, playing outnumbered for the rest of the month will not help the new Lakers in their attempt to meet. 19659002] But both teams and the three players must be grateful. I would not bet on a failure closer to seven matches for Ingram, five for Rondo and three for Paul, to set the tone for the rest of the season, but also to blame those who tarnished the splendor of a superb opening. week of the season.
Instead of focusing on all the wild scores of the 80s that we were entitled to, we had our collective basketball weekend monopolized by unsavory tricks. Instead of feasting on the fastest pace of play for nearly 30 years – a warning about the small sample size is indeed! – We are already forced to look to the December 13 meeting of the Lakers and Rockets in Houston and ask us aloud what the tension will be.
There are only 53 days left.
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