Lakerjones wrote:Take Artest out of the mix and the Thunder have a much easier time.

They didn't factor in Ebanks and his wingspan though.

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:

Lakerjones wrote:Take Artest out of the mix and the Thunder have a much easier time.

They didn't factor in Ebanks and his wingspan though.

I love Ebanks - definitely Trevor-esque in many ways. But he will foul out in about 10 minutes guarding Durant in the playoffs. Let's not fool ourselves here. The refs will dump all over Devin.

Lakerjones wrote:

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:

Lakerjones wrote:Take Artest out of the mix and the Thunder have a much easier time.

They didn't factor in Ebanks and his wingspan though.

I love Ebanks - definitely Trevor-esque in many ways. But he will foul out in about 10 minutes guarding Durant in the playoffs. Let's not fool ourselves here. The refs will dump all over Devin.

I agree. I meant for this game

^^ Gotcha!

Lakerjones wrote:

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:

Lakerjones wrote:Take Artest out of the mix and the Thunder have a much easier time.

They didn't factor in Ebanks and his wingspan though.

I love Ebanks - definitely Trevor-esque in many ways. But he will foul out in about 10 minutes guarding Durant in the playoffs. Let's not fool ourselves here. The refs will dump all over Devin.

How's he gonna foul out if all Durant does is jack up contested jumpers? That's why MWP is so effective on Durant because he doesn't try to drive it all he does is try to isolate him and jack up contested shots.

^^ You're acting as if the refs are going to call a fair game in regards to Durant. I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised.

Bill Simmons on Twitter wrote:All right, I'll ask: Why has the NBA taken so long to decide on Artest's suspension? It's been nearly 2 full days. What's the holdup?

Stern and his boys are in a quandary, sweep this under the rag (minimal games, a game or 2) or screw themselves as hypocrites after awarding MWP with the citizenship award and suspend him until next season.

RA/MWP will, IMHO, miss the entire playoffs to send him a final message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated by the NBA. If there's another incident, he'll be out of the league.

They've already screwed the Lakers once this season, do they want to make it two?

I think he's out for 2 rounds minimum, rest of the playoffs, plus regular season games max.

Stern wants his shiny example of concussion-safety too. He will not want Goodell or Bettman to outshine him.

Initially I said 4-7 games here and I'm now refining that guess to the further side of that at 7 games.

You have to take into account that the NBA is a business that sells drama. The NBA will make a statement on Ron Artest given his past. For that reason he won't get less than 5 games.

But they will also be thinking about the second round and the matchup with OKC. If they eliminate Artest they will eliminate much of the drama. Think how much emotion will be stirred up in OKC and for TV viewers when Ron walks into that arena for the first time in the playoffs. It's going to be HUGE. With all of this build up now the Second round in the West is going to be the heavyweight fight. OKC are the good guys with the likable youngsters in Durant and Westbrook leading the charge. The Lakers are the bad guys with selfish Kobe, immature Bynum and once again despicable Ron Artest (forget the World Peace moniker - now that'll be the ultimate hypocrisy for them to point out and rail against).

It's not something they'll want to short change too much if at all.

Therefore, I think it'll be 7 games. 10 games eats too much of the second round matchup. 7 is just right.

Anything over 5 game suspension sends a good solid message to Ron Ron and to the league. No nonsense in the playoffs.

7 games means he's out for the last game of the regular season, plus 6 more into the playoffs.

The first round, against either the Mavs or Nuggets won't be a cakewalk by any stretch, especially without Ron Ron. Most likely it will go 6 games. Certainly I don't think anyone believes we will be sweeping either of those teams who play us very hard.

Even in if we can win in 5 (I don't see it), that still allows for Ron to be present in OKC for game two of the second round. They will want to milk that drama.

You're not far off from my take which is Sacramento game plus entire first round. Anything more is discounting his entire history of good behavior since his return to the league from the Malice suspension. As I detailed a few pages back, MWP has been suspended just twice for one game each for in-game incidents since the beginning of the 2005-06 season. A longer suspension would also completely discount anything Harden did to instigate the incident, the trash talk, the drifting over to get in MWP's way.

To them that say that was the most vicious thing they've ever seen on a basketball court, you might check out the Karl Malone elbow on Isaiah Thomas. 40 stitches on Thomas' head. And you definitely missed Kermit Washington punching Rudy Tomjanovich. That one was easily the worst one I ever saw. This one isn't anywhere near up there with those two, consequently the punishment shouldn't be that far above what's been meted out for other elbow throwing incidents in the last few years and hopefully the NBA doesn't get carried away like the media thinks they should.

jlkr wrote:and hopefully the NBA doesn't get carried away like the media thinks they should.

But we are talking about Stern (& his cohort Stu Jackson) and "basketball reasons" here!!!!

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:

Bill Simmons on Twitter wrote:All right, I'll ask: Why has the NBA taken so long to decide on Artest's suspension? It's been nearly 2 full days. What's the holdup?

Stern and his boys are in a quandary, sweep this under the rag (minimal games, a game or 2) or screw themselves as hypocrites after awarding MWP with the citizenship award and suspend him until next season.

citizenship award is for off-court contributions, dont think league cares they're going to come down on him pretty hard.

7

Tragic wrote:7

That's what I'm thinking too.

Fair enough. It could have been worse.

(reposting my post from the locked thread )

7 is too excessive! it should be reduced to 2 or 3 for good behavior; they do it all the time in real life!

kenshi1023 wrote:7 is too excessive! it should be reduced to 2 or 3 for good behavior; they do it all the time in real life!

He's not serving 15 years in jail. It's two weeks and chump change.

Now we know, and we can continue the discussion in the MWP thread. See you there!