Why Do NBA Players Keep Getting Hit in the Nuts All of a Sudden?
Late in the third quarter of Game One of the NBA Finals, Matthew Dellavedova smacked Andre Iguodala right in the testicles. Having trailed for most of the night, the Cavs had rallied in that third to take a couple of leads and were down by three with 34 seconds until the 3Q buzzer when the ‘incident’ happened. Iggy was incensed, he almost thwacked Delly square in the jaw and the altercation led to a long delay as the officials checked the tape for a potential ‘hostile play’.
In the end nothing extra was called. Delly took a personal foul and Iggy nothing for his reaction – though he could easily have copped a flagrant for practically challenging Delly to a duel out there. As for the little Aussie battler that could, well on the day he signed a new shoe sponsorship with Chinese outlet Peak, he now has to deal with any twitter search of his name bringing up all number of bad jokes about him reaching ‘down under’ and giving Iggy the ol’ ‘dellavedover the top of the pants’ and the likes. When they called him for a ‘personal’ foul, they weren’t kidding.
Delly was going for the ball, most commentators agreed with that. However he missed it by almost a full metre and yet his hand seemed to find another target fairly clearly. But hey, that might just be because he isn’t the best basketball player anyway. He’s sort of known (and in places either loved or despised, depending who you support) for being an under-talented guard who goes the extra yard to contribute to his team. As it happens, he has some history with the Warriors having started five Finals games last season – averaging 36.3 minutes per game in those starts after Kyrie Irving was injured. Delly had achieved notoriety earlier in the postseason for falling on Al Horford’s knee in a series vs Atlanta (Horford was ejected for throwing a retaliatory elbow to Dell’s head) and he was involved in a similar but less serious altercation with Draymond Green in game five of those Finals. Yeah, there’s a bit of beef there.
Warriors fans were understandably pissed. Except that here’s the thing… in the previous round the Warriors played the Thunder and while there was a pretty cool undercover battle for Australasia between Andrew Bogut and Steven Adams, it was Draymond Green’s matchup with Kiwi Steve that made the headlines. Specifically when he did this, note the knee to the groin as he goes up:
Nothing happened there, it was pretty accidental. But then in the next game, Draymond really tested his limitations when he went and did this:
That is some high-end flailing. Adams had already fouled him, Draymond got a flagrant one after review. That was upgraded to a flagrant two by the league office the following day. The fans in the arena were begging for the refs to “kick him out!” but there would be no such punishment and no suspension either. Which was odd given that Dahntay Jones, a depth player for the Cavs, had been suspended a game for a knock to Bismack Biyombo’s, erm, family jewels, that same week. Some chose to blame the NBA for double standards for rotation players compared to all stars. More likely is that the Jones punishment was an overreaction than the Green one an underreaction. Meh, you can compare the severity/intent right here:
Maybe the most interesting part of this all was that Steven Adams, like the league themselves, did not react to the low blow. That’s no shocker given that Adams has a reputation for being about as stoic as a boulder when faced with any physicality on the court. The most surreal part of either of those incidents was seeing Funaki openly acknowledge his own pain. After all, this guy has been on the end of some very funky contact in the past…
Draymond Green then made a real thing about how he didn’t mean to do it and it was all just one of those things. How he reckoned Adams wanted to have kids some day and he didn’t wanna be the one to ruin that for him. His team played the whole thing down while Russell Westbrook suggested that he thought it was on purpose: “That's two times in the last two games. I don't think you can keep kicking somebody in their private areas”.
Now look again at Green’s teammate Iggy almost do a Boogie Cousins on Dellavedova and there’s a bit of a difference in the reactions. Here’s what Iggy had to say about it all after the game:
It’s pretty crazy when there are four different instances in on playoffs – all within two weeks of each other – of players getting hit in the nuts. Obviously when one such thing happens, it creates a level of scrutiny on similar events that otherwise might’ve been overlooked – and that includes for the players trying to sell that contact as well, not only the fans on twitter and all that.
So does that make it just a coincidence… or something more sinister? Look, that’s for the NBA to decide on a case by case basis, you’re not getting any baited jabs here, buddy. But of the two biggest ones the pattern was clear enough in what followed. Adams got kicked in the bollocks with the score at 48-40 in favour of his OKC team and they went on to close that quarter out on a 24-7 run on the way to a 28 point victory.
In this latest case, Iguodala came straight back and hit a three pointer to extend what had been a three point lead. The Warriors immediately went on a 17-6 run and ended up winning 104-89 to take the opening game of the 2016 Finals. Shaun Livingston was the star man, scoring 20 points off the bench on a night when the Splash Brothers were uncharacteristically off. Shaun Livingston of all people aye? King of the mid-ranger…