November 16, 2008 – Dr. Browntorious
Shaquille O’Neal is a big man. If Shaq fouled players in the paint even half as hard as he got fouled he may break some arms and wrists in the process. For as long as the Big Fella has been in the league the debate has been ongoing as to how to officiate Shaq properly. Should Shaq be penalized for being big, for example sometimes he gets called for fouls because a player bounces off of him hard when they are attacking the basket? It almost looks as if they ran into a brick wall. Or…..should it be a ‘no call’ when a player runs into Shaq and goes crashing down hard.
In tonight’s match-up between the Phoenix Suns and the Detroit Pistons, Shaq was ejected on a Flagrant 2 foul call. While Shaq wasn’t exactly standing still, he wasn’t necessarily at fault either on the defensive play against Rodney Stuckey. As you will see in the video below, Shaq comes running across the lane from the help side to defend against a slashing Rodney Stuckey. A collision was bound to happen, and anytime a player is in mid-air and bangs into Shaquille O’Neal you just know they are going to come out on the wrong end of that mash up.
But did Shaq make an attempt at the ball? In my opinion he clearly was making an attempt to block the ball, in fact he almost had a clean block but the momentum that Stuckey carried in mid-air towards the cup resulted in him flipping backwards and landing on his back. The landing made the play look a lot worse than it really was and unfortunately Shaquille O’Neal was ejected.
Did the Refs make the right call? That’s not such a black and white question to answer. I think if the Refs had an opportunity to look at an instant replay like we did they would have never thrown Shaq out of the game, because he was trying to block the shot. But again if you consider the way Stuckey landed, the fact the refs have to make a decision after seeing the play in real-time, and the fact that the refs must control the temperament of both teams during the game and avoid a potentially chippy game throughout, it may have been the ‘right call’ to eject Shaq if for no other reason than to keep the game under control.
I don’t want to hate on Rodney Stuckey at all here because I don’t think he was at fault in any way on the play or was flopping or anything. He legitimately went down hard…..BUT…..he was down on the ground for a couple minutes where everyone thought he was injured. Then when he does get back up, he goes right back to playing like there was nothing wrong. I’m firm believer and preacher of the famous line from the football movie The Program: “Are you injured, or are you just hurt?”. In other words if you stay down and stop the game for a few minutes then you shouldn’t be allowed to get up and keep playing because you must have been injured. In fact you probably should be forced to sub out of the game afterwards, otherwise it looks like you were just posturing for the referees sake in order to convince them the foul was so hard you may have had an injury.
Ah well, i’ll get down from my soap box…..check out the video below, and make a decision for yourself on if Shaq was making an attempt at the ball or not…..
