so, if you qualified as an "enforcer" back then, you got to act like KG, but KG isn't an enforcer and thus has an "act". gotcha.
Gotcha? I don't know of too many enforcers, or any other NBA player then who acted like Garnett does now. Before Stern pussified the NBA, enforcers took care of silly antics like Garnett's Toronto taunts. Like baseball, antics were taken care of inside the lines. Not by a commissioner. By the players. Maybe Stern, seeing the average age of the "stars", thinks they're not mature enough to police themselves. That's all I can theorize. Between the tiered officiating and the no contact rules, we're approaching square dancing with a rim and backboard.
Until the taunting rules are eliminated, Garnett is violating the rule. But more important than that, Garnett needs to lead by example.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "enforcer", and how much you think KG's "act" has changed based on the times. Because as most of us seem to agree, the NBA has legislated the old-school enforcer out of business. Any attempt to regularly, physically punk your opponents likely results in multiple suspensions. But is there a present-day correlate for those enforcers?
Well first, what did an enforcer do? Usually, they intimidated the other team. They used that intimidation to take their opponents off of their games if they could, especially if they perceived the opponent to be softer than them (i.e. you didn't often see one enforcer take on another). They made their opponents hesitant to do what they normally would. If an opponent crossed the line against them or theirs, they would physically make that opponent think twice about doing it again.
It seems to me that in this day and age, Garnett fulfills a lot of those "enforcer" tasks within this set of rules. He may use talking and taunts a lot of times instead of elbows, but it's awfully effective as an intimidating factor. Ask Calderon and Bosh, who made a combined ZERO buckets between them after KG bodied up Bosh and "taunted" Calderon at the end of the third quarter. Ask last year's Trailblazers, who according to their beatwriter were flat out intimidated by KG
http://shamrockheadband.blogspot.com/2008/01/scary-one.html (I had a better link with quotes from Portland players, but it doesn't work anymore). Ask Za Za Pachulia, who definitely enjoyed taunting KG when KG couldn't respond without a suspension in the playoffs, but surely remembers getting legally laid out a few games later.
:shrugs: I'm with Crownsy on this, as the effect of current-day KG's behavior seems a lot more similar to that of old-school Oakley than the people that Old-school Oakley would have gone after. The main difference is that old-school Oakley played in a more physical league, plus, when it came down to it if he had to knock someone out and miss a few games it was all good. KG can't really afford to do that (which is what lets guys like Za Za, or Anthony Peeler a few years ago pop him without immediate repercussion) ...but that's what guys like Perk are around for, if it comes to that
.
Topic: Breaking news: KG suspended for striking Bogut (Read 14460 times)