Question about Howards suspension.

[greg683x]

Last night in the game thread I brought this up when we had talked about what the league would do in response to Howards elbow.

Had the Kevin Garnett 'incidental' smack of Pachulia last year in the playoffs and Garnett pushing the ref had not happened, do you think Howard would still be getting suspended??

It may seem like a stupid question b/c Howard obviously deserves to get suspended, but outside of Boston fans last year everyone thought Garnett should have been suspended.  I personally thought he was going to be suspended, but I still think we would have pulled the series out anyway.  Anyhow, at the beginning of this season the league kind of did an OOPs Im sorry about that and suspended Kevin Garnett the next time an 'incidental' hit happened and said they'd be keeping an eye on him.

So do you think had the whole Garnett thing hadnt have happened and so much hadnt been made of it, the NBA might have let Dwight slide?

I just think the situation is interesting, b/c it pretty much mirrors the same situation we were in last year.  Except Orlando is in even a worse position than we were.

[Chris]

I don't think there needed to be any precedent to suspend Howard for that elbow.  It was a clearly aggressive play after the whistle, that was in no way a basketball play, and could only be interpretted as an intent to injure or "send a message".  In the NBA today, those almost always get a suspension.

Although I would have been interested to see if they overlooked it had the Magic been down 3-2 going into Thursday's game.  I think the temptation to force a game 7 is just too strong for the NBA.

[jimmehx]

That foul was outright aggressive - and would have hurt too!
I don't think KGs incidental ranks on that scale.

[liam]

Howard just threw a cheap shot elbow at a guys head. He has to be suspended. It didn't even happen during play. Is this a real question?

[greg683x]

Howard just threw a cheap shot elbow at a guys head. He has to be suspended. It didn't even happen during play. Is this a real question?

KGs 'incident' happened after the whistle also and KG threw a cheap shot arm to the face, and in the process he pushed a ref out of his way.  There was MANY people who said 'He had to be suspended' just like you said in your sarcastic response.  So yeah, get over yourself, and this is a real question.

Im in no way trying to call Garnett a dirty player or anything, and obviously an elbow is worse than a forearm to the face.  Im just comparing the two incidents, and pointing out at how this is almost a direct replica of the same situation last year.  The NBA obviously handled tthe two incidents very differently (Did KG even get fined??) and I was just wondering if the outcome of this would have been different had they hadnt got so much flack from people about what happened with Garnett.

I do think Howard should be suspended and its the right move, but Id also like to point about that Howards elbow is a love tap compared to stuff players got away with in the 80's