Re: The Suspensions
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I won't argue as long as Ben Wallace ends up with AT LEAST 10. I mean, anything less than that is to totally ignore his role in keeping the player battle going and, in turn, inciting the fans of what is really HIS team. Without him, the Pistons are nothing but a bunch of undersized role-players, except Rasheed. And I don't think you'd find many who disagree with me.
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Disclaimer: While I'm a Knicks fan, Wallace is on my fantasy team.
The problem with giving Wallace 10 games is that there's no precedent for suspending a player for that long for shoving someone.
While it might be "right" to suspend him for that long in some abstract sense, collective bargaining agreements aren't about being "right." The players union is going to see punishing Wallace with a huge suspension as a violation of the agreements they have with the league about player suspensions, and they're going to fight it.
While it seems unfair to hurt the Pacers so much more than the Pistons with these suspensions for an incident in which both teams were responsible, there's precedent for how Wallace should be punished that will be hard to buck. The Pacers players, on the other hand, aren't going to have a lot of precedent to protect themselves with. They pretty much came up with a whole new infraction the league has to punish.
Fair or not, this is going to end up hurting the Pacers a lot more than the Pistons.
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