David Stern's Contradiction

When is the last time you have seen a Tim Duncan NBA Commercial?  When is the last time you have seen NBA advertise the Spurs/Lakers rivalry?.. I can wait.  Intensity and emotion sells in the NBA and David Stern knows this, but he is still set in his ways of turning this into a game of robots while selling to the fans the emotional play.  NBA.com "Dunk of The Night" yesterday was Pierce's dunk on Frye in which he stared him down immediately after the dunk.  Pierce staring is what made this dunk so much better and probably what turned this dunk into "Dunk of The Night".

What you can not see is that Pierce got a tech for this.  Tommy Heinsohn, one of the biggest homers on TV, pointed out over the 100 replays they showed that Pierce did not say one single word to Frye after the dunk.  Not only is this ridiculous to give a tech for showing some emotion after a dunk, it is a complete contradiction to show this as "Dunk of the Night" a couple hours later.  This is the exact same as NFL fining James Harrison 75k for a hard hit and then trying to sell the photo of the exact same hit on their website.  You can not advertise and make money off of something and at the same time fine players for doing it.  I know the NBA is still trying to get their image as far away from the infamous Palace Brawl, but it is time to stop being scared of what you are.  The NBA became popular again off of emotional and physical rivalry's like 80s Bos-LA, early 90s Chi-Det, late 90's Chi-Jazz, and even late 90s NY-Mia.  NBA needs to finally embraces this and stop penalizing players for doing the exact thing that makes the NBA popular.  How great would the NBA be if players could still do this?

While NBA will without a doubt be playing that on an official NBA commercial the next day, you will be getting a tech immediately following and turning a great play into a 1 point possession.  If you don't believe me ask Baron Davis who had one of best dunks of all time, got teched, and proceeded to see the same dunk and reaction over and over on NBA "Where Amazing Happens" commercials.