You may not recall this, but the original concept of CLS focused on dissecting the NHL’s biggest issues in a round table format. Instead, the blog morphed into something that is often much better.
James:
“Bruce Bowen is a cheap player. There’s no debate. He’s not some clumsy power forward who can’t stay out of his own way (like Mark Madsen), or even some uncoordinated center who can’t remember to keep his elbows near his body (like Shawn Bradley). He’s a world-class athlete who has complete control over every inch of his body at all times.
As anyone who’s ever played basketball knows, with the exception of clumsy people who probably shouldn’t be playing in the first place, there are no accidents on a basketball court.Your feet just don’t coincidentally land under someone else’s feet as he’s shooting a jump shot, and you don’t just coincidentally kick someone in the calf as he’s going up for a layup or dunk. These things don’t just happen. They don’t. The only room for error happens when someone’s trying to block a fast-break layup or dunk, takes a roundhouse swipe and inadvertently ends up hitting his opponent’s head instead of the ball (like we saw with Matt Barnes when he clocked Matt Harpring Tuesday night). When Jason Richardson nails Memo Okur at the end of Game 4 because he’s pissed that Okur was driving at the tail end of a guaranteed win, or Baron Davis elbows Derek Fisher in the same game because he’s ticked that the Warriors blew a winnable game … those aren’t accidents.”
Before we get into defining what a dirty hit really is, I have to ask you Joe: does it matter whom the offender is? Should guys who seem to continually blur the line between legal and illegal … who have a tendency to take advantage of other players … should the Scott Stevens, Dion Phaneufs and Mike Richards of the world be under special consideration?
In other words, can we fairly judge the intention of a hit and should reputation be taken into account?
JOE: