Nets cry foul after judges award Lakers win

Jason Collins
A judging controversy has erupted in the NBA in the wake of the Los Angeles Lakers’ win over the New Jersey Nets in Los Angeles Sunday night. The Nets outscored the Lakers 108-102, but the judges awarded the Lakers the win on artistic merit.

While basketball judges never address the public or media about their decisions, observers of the sport speculated that the decision may have been influenced by the presence of Jason Collins in the Nets’ lineup. Collins, who came out as gay before the season, made his Nets debut in the game, becoming the first openly gay athlete in the four major professional sports leagues in the United States.

“For many people, Jason being the first out player to get into a game is a great moment,” said longtime basketball analyst Scott Hamilton, “but the judges are old-school. They’re conservative and they don’t like change. They may be looking at Jason as an outsider they don’t want as part of their club.”

Collins wouldn’t speculate on the effect his sexuality might have had on the judging: “I can’t say why the judges made the decisions they did,” he said. “They can, but they won’t. That’s just the way it goes.”

But Hamilton and his broadcast partner, Sandra Bezic, were both quick to note that there may have been other factors at play.

“The Lakers have a way of connecting emotionally to the audience, making them feel like they’re really part of the performance, that the Nets just don’t have,” Bezic said. “They just play to the crowd so beautifully and bring them along on this wonderful ride. It’s captivating.”

And, Hamilton added, the Lakers put their best fashion foot forward. “As much as we all might hate to admit it, costumes do count. The Lakers have the beautiful white and yellow and purple outfits that are bold and flattering and exciting. The Nets wear black with white trim. It’s a classic look, but really they’re just kind of drab when you get right down to it. The judges notice that.”

Nets rookie coach Jason Kidd said he was angry with the decision, but kept his emotions in check in front of the media. “It looked to me like we won that game,” he said quietly at the postgame press conference. “The judges saw it a different way and we have to live with that, but I think this sport has a lot of work to do. My guys went out there and played better, but they don’t get the win. It’s not right.”

Not surprisingly, Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni didn’t see it that way. “I thought we were clearly better,” he said. “You heard the crowd. They know.”

“Honestly, casual fans see the Nets scoring more points and losing and they think it’s all fixed,” Hamilton said. “But if you know the sport inside and out, if you really know what you’re looking at, you see things differently. Obviously the Nets scored more points. But that doesn’t mean they should win. That’s basketball. That’s what makes it so great.”

Meghan Rutledge celebrates early, crashes: Remember Lindsey Jacobellis?

An 18-year-old Moto-X racer named Meghan Rutledge lost a gold medal at the X Games this weekend when, leading the race, she celebrated prematurely, pumping a fist during the final jump. She crashed on landing and finished out of the medals. I saw the video on The Big Lead.

This reminded me of a similar incident in the 2006 Winter Olympics, when snowboard cross racer Lindsey Jacobellis did essentially the same thing, with a similar result, though Jacobellis was able to recover in time to win the silver medal. Another difference is that, at least according to the video, Rutledge appeared to have been crestfallen, while Jacobellis, at least publicly, shrugged off her error, saying she was just having fun, and that’s what snowboarding’s supposed to be all about.

I wrote about Jacobellis’ crash for Salon, and that section of my June 21, 2006, column is pasted below. I would just link directly to it, but Salon’s permalinks from that time don’t work anymore.

A few days earlier, I had written about how the X Games athletes, including Jacobellis, had brought a breath of fresh air to the Olympics: “They bring their laid-back culture to the Games, downplaying the importance of medals at every opportunity, and they present a refreshing contrast to the Type-A zealots who make up so much of the elite athlete population.”

I wonder if that’s less true now, seven years later. Rutledge certainly didn’t seem to be shrugging off her defeat in Jacobellisian fashion. But that might just be the difference between two individual personalities. I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from it. I just wonder, and that’s all I’m going to do, because I find X Games-type sports to be boring, so I’m not interested enough in the answer to research it.

Here’s what I said about Lindsey Jacobellis in 2006. Note how the basis of the column is the old-school publishing model that had me waiting from Friday until Tuesday to write again:

So I think Lindsey Jacobellis is my kid. I’m going to get one of those DNA tests.

I think the American snowboard cross silver medalist is my own spawn because she created the most talked-about moment of the 2006 Olympics mere hours after I’d published my column Friday morning, with my next one not due until Tuesday. Thanks a lot, kiddo.

This is exactly what my kids do. I mean my other kids. They have a knack for falling ill at 5:01 p.m. on the Friday of holiday weekends. And the longer the holiday, the weirder the illness and the more necessary a doctor.

On Labor Day or Memorial Day weekend, they’ll just get an ear infection, maybe a little stomach flu. But give them a four- or five-day weekend and they really go to work. Green spots, Linda Blair cranial 360s, spontaneous combustion.

Jacobellis — Mother and I call her “Linds” now — only had a three-day weekend, so she didn’t really go for it, as the boarders say. She didn’t declare for the NFL draft or move to Washington and change her name to the Lindsey Nationals.

But her last-minute showboat that cost her a gold medal — if you don’t know what I’m talking about at this point, I’d like to borrow your copy of the current Cave and Garden Monthly — was immediately the talk of the Olympics, except in this column, and will go down as one of Turin’s signature moments.

On the same day, Sweden beat the United States in the greatest upset in the history of women’s hockey, and it took a back seat to Jacobellis blowing a gold medal in a sport that most people had never heard of a week earlier.

As we’ve seen in the chatter that’s gone on over the last four days, Jacobellis’ fall will be a cautionary tale for some, an illustration of what happens when you count your chickens, when you try to show up beaten foes, when you self-aggrandize.

For others, it will be an inspiring example of youthful exuberance trumping ambition and competitiveness, of living life to the fullest, consequences be damned, of eating dessert before dinner, painting your nails with white-out for the prom.

Lindsey Jacobellis grabbing her snowboard and falling has become one of those Rorschach tests. What you think of it says a lot about who you are. What I think of it is she must be my kid.

As I sat around over the three-day weekend, not writing columns, listening to my children sniffle and cough, I was amused watching the commentariat and the bloggers try and fail to come up with parallels from sports history for Jacobellis’ screwup.

Leon Lett’s premature touchdown celebration in the 1992-season Super Bowl was cited most often, but everyone seemed to agree there’d never been anything quite like what Jacobellis did, costing herself victory by showboating.

Everybody forgot about Billy Conn.

Conn, the light heavyweight champion, gave up his belt and challenged Joe Louis for the heavyweight title in 1941. Conn outboxed the bigger champ for the first 12 rounds of the 15-round bout and had a big lead. All he had to do was keep doing what he’d been doing for three more rounds and he’d win the heavyweight championship.

But he went for the knockout in the 13th. Not enough to win, he had to do it with flair. Get some style points. Sound familiar? Louis put him to sleep before the next bell.

I’m sure that story’s been used to warn many a youngster not to get cocky, but I’ll always remember Conn being asked on the fight’s 50th anniversary what he’d do in that 13th round if he had it to do all over again. I’m paraphrasing from memory: “If I had it to do again, I’d probably do the same thing,” he said. “What the hell’s the difference?”

I love that attitude. Why not go for it? The good thing about being Lindsey Jacobellis’ dad — I think — is that I won’t have to teach her to think that way.