Now That's a Fine Play!

Each year the NBA hands out a variety of fines and suspensions to its players and coaches. The NBA is, of course, all powerful, and therefore can fine or suspend you for whatever it wants to.  Some of these fines and suspensions are predetermined, such as the penalty for accruing too many technical fouls. We’re not really concerned with penalties like that; the really interesting fines and suspensions are the ones leveed by the NBA after the game is over and the league has time to review the tape.

Often this is how we choose to evaluate actors and actresses: we watch their performance and then later assess whether or not it was valuable.  This season the NBA has largely been judicious with their penalties: they’ve been consistent, and most of them were fines or suspensions that a player or team could reasonably expect. Yet regardless of their fairness, fines and suspensions always leave someone hot and bothered, even if what they did was ridiculous to begin with…which always leaves us rolling with laughter.

So without further ado, here are the best fines and suspensions from the 2012-2013 NBA season, broken down by category:

European Basketball Flopping

Did you know the NBA instituted a rule at the start of this season that allowed the NBA to determine if a player flopped after the game is over? Each player gets one warning, and then is fined $5,000 for their second ruled flop.  Here’s to you, Omer Asik, Kevin Martin, J.J.Barea, Gerald Wallace, and Reggie Evans for being officially designated as “pansies” by the league for over-floppage. Don’t worry, Zaza Pachulia, Gustavo Ayon, Royal Ivey, Tony Parker, and Donald Sloan – we know you received warnings too for not being man enough to play this game.  Oh and also, if you were curious, Donald Sloan now plays for the Guangdong Southern Tigers.

Generally Being a Dick to the Refs

50 posts? It's time to celebrate!

Today marks Volume Shooters' 50th post on this site. Don't worry - we're surprised we made it this far as well.  To honor ourselves, and because the playoffs are right around the corner, we're looking back at some of the top moments from the 2012-2013 NBA season.

50 point performances

Jack: What better way to start things off than by commemorating our 50th post than by examining the best 50-point efforts from this season? (Side note: In an attempt to include more games and players I thought about making it players scoring 45+ in a game. Turns out this would only expand the field from 3 performances to 9, and from 3 players to 6.  You can see the list here. My take-away is that Carmelo Anthony and James Harden have clearly been out to prove things this season - Carmelo that he can still perform while being hung over lead a team to success at the highest level, and Harden that you should always fear the beard. Anyway...) Only three times has the 50-point mark been eclipsed this season - here's my ranking of those performances:

Making It Rain

**Edit - After reading this article for the first time, one of our editors looked like Dwight in this scene after realizing Steve Nash wasn't included.  Sadly, I have to agree and acknowledge that I messed up. Watch this...start at around 0:40.  His form is perfect, his hair is flowing, and his career shooting averages are absurd (49/43/90 - yeah you read that right).  So my apologies to all 7 of our readers.**

Watch this video. Specifically, watch Ray Allen.  Notice how he disappears from the screen for a while?  Rondo runs a fast break, and you never see Ray – not until the ball is kicked out to him in the corner for a sweet three.  It’s important that you see this.  It’s important that you know that instead of making a cut towards the basket for a layup (like most kids are taught), Ray runs to the corner and spots up.  It’s important to note that Ray Allen would do this even if it weren’t a fast break (he would run around screens until he popped open in that spot).