Sports fans in Arizona live the truth of a famous phrase:
There’s no justice. There’s just us.
We were reminded again on Monday, when the Spurs’ star Victor Wembanyama was not suspended for a pivotal Game 5 following a Flagrant 2 violation on Sunday, after he was ejected for throwing a vicious elbow to the chin/throat of Minnesota’s Naz Reid.
Cooler heads prevailed, even though replays were stunning, drawing gasps of horror from viewers and teammates alike. Malicious intent jumped off the screen, and few deemed Wembanyama capable of such nasty business.
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He received grace and mercy because he has no priors on his record; because he was tossed in the second quarter of Game 4, where his ejection ultimately caused his team to lose the game; and because of the ratings attached to the NBA’s next superfreak. Either way, it’s the kind of a player-friendly outcome that mostly defines the tenure of NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
We weren’t so lucky here in the Valley, and the sliding scale and selective morality of the NBA again pours salt in our most gruesome wound: when former commissioner David Stern suspended Boris Diaw and Amar’e Stoudemire before a pivotal Game 5 in 2007.
We all know the play. Robert Horry hip-checked Steve Nash into the scorer’s table out of frustration, in the waning moments of a crucial Suns’ road victory in San Antonio. Diaw and Stoudemire left the bench area, although it seemed like they were more concerned with Nash’s well-being than starting a brawl at midcourt. To most observers, they broke the letter of the law but not the spirit.
Stern saw differently. He hit us over the head with an oversized gavel. He punished the victim more than the aggressor. It remains one of the greatest miscarriages of injustice in sports history, right up there with the 1972 Olympic team that got jobbed in Munich and the scandalous judging that robbed Roy Jones at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.
Stern had his reasons. The Malice in the Palace was a third-rail moment for the NBA, and Stern never again wanted players spilling onto the court in moments of anger, tension and chaos. Yet some wondered if Stern would’ve cut the Suns a break had Jerry Colangelo still owned the team. After all, Colangelo was a trusted friend, an ally that Stern leaned on many times throughout his tenure.
But in the spring of 2007, things had changed dramatically in Phoenix. Colangelo was in his final months as chairman and CEO, terms negotiated during the sale of the franchise to Robert Sarver. His son, Bryan, was effectively shown the door the previous year, severing the emotional connection between the Colangelos and Sarver, between the old Suns and the new Suns.
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Even worse: During that same playoff series, disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy claimed NBA officials were being especially punitive to the Suns because of their dislike for Sarver’s new regime in Phoenix, further tilting the court in the Spurs’ favor.
After the reprieve, the Spurs rolled through the Jazz in five games, then steamrolled the worst NBA Finals team ever led by LeBron James. All the Suns had to do was get through an aging nemesis in San Antonio and the parade would’ve been ours. Before the Horry hip check, that Game 4 in San Antonio felt like a breakthrough moment for all of us.
That team had the players and the battle scars. They won 61 regular season games when they were no longer taking anyone by surprise. They were in Year 3 of a revolutionary run, and it was our time.
Until it wasn’t. Alas, that team now ranks among the best of the ringless and the worst of our misfortunes; while the Spurs are still catching all the breaks after all these years.
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Nineteen years later, that still hurts, a clear sign of psychological trauma.
Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7.