Sports Illustrated – Bruce Bowen Plays Clean Defense; Video Evidence to the Contrary

I just finished Marty Burns’ Sports Illustrated.com piece on Bruce Bowen. My assessment? Burns needs to get his straw out of Frau David Stern’s ass. The article, entitled, The dirt on Bowen: Does Spurs’ stopper cross the line with feisty defense? alleges to objectively discuss Bowen’s league-wide reputation for dirty defensive play, particularly sticking his foot under jump shooters while they’re in the air.

Burns, oddly, turns to NBA executives for opinions on Bowens’ play. Here’s a sample:

“He’s a very tough, hard-nosed defender who crowds you and tries to get under your skin,” said an Eastern Conference general manager who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’s basically a pest.

“[But] I don’t think he’s sticking his foot out intentionally. He’s a defensive player. He does what he can to bother you and throw you off your game. But knowing him and knowing his character, I don’t think he’d go out there and intentionally try to hurt somebody.”

Do you really think NBA exec, especially players turned execs, are willing to rock the boat knowing that Frau Stern and his resident bitch, “Discipline Czarina” Stu Jackson, is watching every word they utter?

Burns goes to great lengths to justify Bowen’s actions and criticize Thomas- even quoting Tim Duncan (as if Burns was going to be able to elicit a confession from a San Antonio player). Duncan says of Bowen:

“It’s a bad situation when a coach puts himself in that position and goes after a player,” Duncan said. “It’s very uncalled for. I don’t know what his intentions were with that and we have bigger plans than trying to hurt somebody. I would hope that people would understand and respect that and obviously they don’t.”

Later in the article Burns attempt to make the reader feel compassion for Bowen:

They point to his incredible rags-to-riches tale of a disadvantaged kid who went undrafted out of Cal State Fullerton making it as a key contributor for an NBA champion. They cite his sparkling reputation off the court, his long list of charitable deeds in the community. They also say the Spurs’ organization would not tolerate it.

Rags-to-riches tale? It’s not as if he went from being a walk-on at a DII school to the NBA. Bowen did receive an athletic scholarship to attend CS-Fullerton. It’s not as if Bowen was raised in a shack that looked like something from the Third World in Tennessee to become an NBA star like, say, Penny Hardaway. Or grow up in a one-parent household where that one parent was on drugs, which is the story of so many black professional athletes.

Nice try Marty.

If you want the truth about Bowen, ask coaches and players, at least those who aren’t in the San Antonio Spurs organization. L.A. Lakers head coach, Phil Jackson, calls Bowen, “Eddie Scissorhands,” so nicknamed for Bowen’s penchant for jabbing opponents with his hands and slicing them with his fingernails.

Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Steve Francis, and Rip Hamilton are just four players who call Bowen’s tactics dirty. The most recent Bowen basher, and co-subject of Burns’ piece, is Isiah Thomas, New York Knicks head coach. Thomas accused Thomas of repeatedly poking his foot under Knicks’ shooting guard Jamal Crawford while Crawford was in the process of jump shots.

Zeke’s comment in regards to Bowen to his players was: “Next time he does that, break his fucking foot.”

Burns makes it a point to back up the notion that Bowen doesn’t stick his foot under opposing players whiler they’re in the air with a lengthy comment from another anonymous GM. The following is a portion of the comment:

“How many times has he been accused of [sticking his foot underneath] over that time span? Four or five? Out of [4,000] plays?,” the GM notes. “When you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem like it’s intentional.”

And finally, Burns uses lack of punishment from Discipline Czarina Stu Jackson as the true sign that Bowen is innocent:

Perhaps the best argument in Bowen’s defense, however, is that the NBA has never seen fit to punish him. The league has cracked down hard in recent years on fighting and flagrant fouls in a clear effort to eliminate the old justice system in which players took matters into their own hands on the court. Yet so far discipline czar Stu Jackson has seen nothing to warrant any penalty — though he did phone Bowen on Sunday to warn him to watch his feet in the future.

Oddly, the Burns piece ends there. There was no attempt on Marty’s part to find out why Czarina Jackson gave Bowen the warning; no attempt to explain the warning.

Now, if you believe Burns and Bowen and the Spurs and anonymous GMs and anonymous ex-players turned NBA execs, here’s some video proof that flies in the face of their protestations that “Brucey Big Foot” is on the up-and-up:

Here’s another view of Bowen attempting to ruin “Stevie Franchise’s” career:

Here’s Brucey Big Foot kicking Ray Allen:

And finally, here’s Bowen at his dirtiest (against Vince Carter):

(I just love, in the above video, how Bowen runs under Carter and then continues to push Carter with his legs until Vince falls. Notice too that, at that point in the game, Carter had lit Bowen up for 43 points and the Nets had the lead. With Carter gone, the Nets folded down the stretch and lost the game.

On opening night this season Josh Howard of the Dallas Mavericks was lighting up Bowen. In the 3rd quarter Bowen stepped up his push-and-shove tactics. At one point Bowen and Howard got tangled and Howard ended up on the floor. Brucey Big Foot purposely stepped on Josh’s chest. Howard’s reaction to Bowen’s chest stomp earned Howard a technical foul. Bowen’s dirty play in that game, just as in the Carter incident got the desired effect – Howard was ineffective from that point on, only netting four points the rest of the game. The Spurs were in peril of getting trounced by the Mavs, but the Howard tech muted him to the point where the Spurs were able to regain their “footing” and eventually win the game, 97-91.)

Bowen is a punk, right along with “Mr. Anger Management” Raja Bell. When I think about it, this Burns article is basically saying that peeps are just Bowen haters, just like they’re Bell haters. But I don’t ever remember anyone calling Alvin Robertson or Dennis Johnson dirty, and they’re perhaps two of the greatest lock-down defenders in the modern NBA.

All told, Bowen is a bitch with no real game to speak of and Burns is just trying to keep the NBA contacts he deems valuable.