By Michael A. De Leon | January 30, 2007 | Print Print

Stu Jackson has announced that Kobe Bryant will be suspended one game without pay for “striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili in the face.”

We’re sure Kobe just forgot that he wasn’t in some Colorado hotel room and thats the reason he decided to “bitch slap” Manu.

Did he deserve to be suspended? I’m not so sure about that, but right when that happened, I thought to myself “nobody will ever call Kobe dirty for hitting Manu or running into Robert Horry on a potentially game winning play, but you know everyone will be calling Manu a flopper in the morning.”

And they did, including some fool who writes for Dime Magazine:
“How about Manu’s dramatics after getting smacked by Kobe following the block? After laying on the ground like he’d taken a Lennox Lewis right cross, Manu was on the bench for a few minutes while Michele Tafoya reported that he had cotton in his nose, in his mouth, and ice on his eye. Really, was Kobe’s hit that bad?”

Instead of talking about Manu’s hustle to even get to that shot after Bryant pump faked Bowen out of his shoes, or talk about how Manu plays with so much heart, passion and determination, his name gets tainted with bullshit like that.

But Bryant gets a 1 game suspension, meaning he has to sit out a game against the Knicks. I’m sure that hurts him. Now I’m actually a fan of Bryant’s, I just hate how no one would ever dare think anything wrong about him because he’s the media and NBA’s darling, but people are calling out Manu. Doens’t make much sense to me.

Comments

2 Comments so far

Kris on January 31, 2007 2:50 pm
I don’t think it was intentional but I know what you mean about Manu. They even said it on ESPN during the game that Manu is the most hated players in the NBA and I believe that is true. I’ve read a couple of other NBA boards with a lot of Manu hate on it. I just don’t understand it. Manu is one of the nicest and the most unselfish players that you can meet. I know that he flops but I’m getting sick of that excuse. Almost every player in the league flops and it’s not Manu’s fault that he’s doing it. It’s the refs for allowing it. They just keep coming up with stupid reasons for why he’s the worst player around and that he needs to go back to Argentina. I can say that if Manu did that to Kobe people would be crying for Manu’s head instead Manu really gets hurt and says that he’s doing his usual flopping and acting stuff. Bull. Well anyways I’m done with my ranting. Luckily Manu doesn’t give a care. He even said he didn’t come to the NBA to make friends.
Michael on January 31, 2007 8:10 pm
Kris,

Thanks for taking time to comment. I agree with you. I didn’t think it was intentional at all. It was him trying to get a foul call, but I just knew something had to come about him flopping on that play even though he was clearly bleeding and was hurt. Once again, thanks for commenting. I appreciate it.