Carmelo Anthony got screwed.
Ok, here is the scoop. Carmelo Anthony (Melo) is this basketball player involved in a little fracas at Madison Square Garden recently. He lightly punched some guy who flagrantly and maliciously fouled a teammate of his. Then after he lightly tapped that guy in the head, he ran away , and was chased out by 5'6 NBA thug, Nate Robinson, and Jared Jeffries. Do Carmelo's actions sound like an enforcer to you? No!!! Carmelo just stood up for his teammate in the heat of battle. He didn't fight anyone cuz he isn't an enforcer.
As a result, David Stern slaps Carmelo with a 15 game suspension. Are you kidding me??? 15 games??? Carmelo deserved much less.
NBA rules state that anyone who throws a punch is automatically suspended for 1 game. The NBA has also made a number of rulings concerning player violence, and based on these rulings, Carmello definitely deserves much less.
In 1995, the NBA suspended Vernon Maxwell 10 games for going into the stands and hitting a fan. It suspended Dennis Rodman 11 games for kicking a courtside television photographer in 1997. Carmello's featherweight punch was limited to his on court opponents, and he should get a much lighter sentence then both Vernon and Dennis.
In 1976, Kermit Washington received a 26 game suspension for hitting Rudy Tomjanovich. But unlike this situation, Washington was already currently engaged in a brawl. Washington saw Tomjanovich running to help, so Washington swung around to meet him. The punch, which took Tomjanovich by surprise, fractured his face away from his skull about 1/4 of an inch and left Tomjanovich unconscious in a pool of blood in the middle of the arena. In this case, Carmelo's punch was a bitch slap, and yet he gets 60% of the penalty that Kermit Washington got, for almost killing someone? That seems absurd! A Kermit Washington punch is far greater then Carmelo's bitch slap times 1.67 (1/0.6 = 1.67... Those of you who know how to do currency conversions will know what I am talking about) because Carmelo's punch was a punch thrown where he was running away from his oppponent, where the punch was a bitch slap, and where the receiver of the punch did not suffer any damage, except surprise!
In the most recent NBA brawl "the malice at the palace", Jermaine Oneal got 25 games for clocking a fan, Ron Artest got 72 games for going into the stands and fighting fans, and Stephen Jackson got 30 games for fighting with fans in the stands and protecting his teammate. Ben Wallace, the instigator got 6 games for shoving Artest.
Wallace's shove used much more force, and institgated something much more serious then what Carmello did. Yet he got only 6 games. Melo's 15 game suspension means that Melo's featherweight punch is 2 and a half times worse then Ben Wallace's. Giving Melo such an extravagant punishment means Melo's punishment is based on the action, in this case "the punch", and not so much the force of the physical contact, and the result of that contact. This seems highly absurd because a contrast of these punishments will only encourage players to change the method of attack (strong shove as opposed to featherweight punching) instead of quelling the attack, and minimizing the result of their actions.
For these reasons, Melo's suspension is way too long, and he should have definitely got much less.
