“I thought we were playing Michael Fuckin’ Jordan the way he was getting the whistle. Durant damn near shot more free throws than our whole team. That’s the game.”

Damn right, KG!  Testify!  From your lips to David Stern’s ears.  The Celtics took a total of 17 free throws last night.  Kevin Durant got 15 all by himself.  And it doesn’t take Chris Sheridan to see what’s going on here.  Durant is rapidly emerging as a bone fide superstar who’s going to put asses in the seat and give the NBA another key piece to their marketing strategy going forward.  So you get him playing in one of your key markets, send him to the line every time someone so much as makes a face at him, and you send a message to the rest of the league that he’s untouchable now.  That’s how scoring titles are made and jerseys are sold.

And this is why, though I’ll always really, really like basketball as a friend, I’ll never be ready to settle down and have a committed relationship.  Not just pros, but college, high school and CYO for that matter.  It’s this business of making calls for reasons other than what actually happened on the court.  Shaq gets to throw elbows because that’s his move.  Iverson’s palmed the ball his entire career.  First Michael Fuckin’ Jordan and now Lebron get to take off from the 3-point arc and take more steps than a Dancing with the Stars contestant.   And that doesn’t touch the surface of the home town calls, the make up calls, the he-can’t-be-allowed-to-foul-out non-calls, the prop-up-a-young-superstar calls, and of course the the-mob-wants-me-to-preserve-the-under calls.  This might seem like a naive question, but what if they just started making calls based on the actual rules the way they’re actually written in the actual book.  A foul is a foul, no matter who you are, where you’re playing or what time of the game it is.  How would that be?  You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.