NBA suspends Ref - About Time!

I wish I had a blog 10 years ago.  I used to have season tickets to the Miami Heat when I worked down in the lovely town of Hialeah.  My wife and I never missed a game.  Now granted, I was, and still am, a homer when it comes to Miami sports, but, the crap the NBA used to let their NBA refs get away with was quite unbelievable and I would have had something to post every game night.

I used to get so pumped yelling at refs during the game, I would scare my wife.  If I had a dime for every time I screamed 'where's the foul!?', I'd be typing this on my yacht. I would leave the games, drive home listening to the radio waiting for the phone call to come to the announcer complaining about the refs, and he'd always play it off as "that's the game, you are just looking at it from Miami's point of view".  And I know 99% of the time, that was true, but there were always blatant calls that would come up from time to time.

So here we are 10 years later and the NBA, who fines their employees for discussing bad officiating, has finally come out and acknowledged a problem with an official, and suspends one Mr. Joey Crawford.  The reason this one intrigues me is because last year, when our Miami Heat were in the playoffs and the finals, this ref would always cause some sort of stir.  The main one being with Undonis Haslem.  I don't remember the play leading up to it, but I remember Udonis being called for something and the camera showing Joey Crawford sitting back from Udonis with a smirk on his face waiting... Just waiting for him to make a move.  And when Udonis threw his mouthpiece on the ground, he was on it like white on rice.  He T'd him up so fast, he should have raced Charles Barley earlier this year.  Of course the announcers at the time, who I think included Steve Kerr, were all over it too once they realized what happened.

So why do I bring this up now?  Becuase I find it interesting that he has been accused of asking Duncan if he wants to fight.  That is exactly the look he had on his face when he T'd up Undonis.  How do I know?  I played it over and over on my Tivo, yelling at the TV and scaring my wife.  He looked like he was hoping Udonis would start something, say something, anything to give him an excuse to do something else.  I don't know what that would have been and I am not saying he would have or wanted to fight, but it is interesting givent the comments and actions he has been suspended for.

Congratulations to Stearn and the NBA for finally acknowledging a problem among the ranks of the officals in the NBA, and doing something about it.  Maybe they will be held to a higher standard from this point forward.