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April 19, 2007 The stunt Avery Johnson and the Dallas Mavericks pulled Tuesday night was a blight on the history of the NBA. Not playing Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard and Jerry Stackhouse in a game with playoff implications allowed Golden State to come away with a huge win and pretty much clinch a playoff spot. Now, if they had played those guys for 15-20 minutes, no problem. They've certainly got a right to rest key players with the post-season approaching. But to not play them one second smacks of conspiracy to get the Warriors into the playoffs. How? Why? Well, consider this: On March 19, 2005, Don Nelson quit as Mavs head coach. Promoted was his top assistant, one Avery Johnson, whom Nelson hired. Who is currently coaching the Warriors? The same Don Nelson. Any chance Johnson was trying to pay back his mentor by sitting out three of his top players including Nowitzki, the probable league MVP? It sure looks that way when the eighth best team in the West scores a 29 point win over the team with the league's best record. Instead of suspending referees, maybe David Almighty (Stern) should investigate this blatant act of collusion...  Did Avery Johnson's sit-down of three starters hand Golden State a play-off spot? In comparison, the Phoenix Suns have nothing to play for, but in the last two games – which have playoff implications for the Warriors, Clippers and Lakers – coach Mike D'Antoni played Steve Nash and Amare Stoudamire more than 30 minutes in each game. What can I say about the horribly tragic events at Virginia Tech Monday? Just absolute tragedy perpetrated by a terribly deranged person. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Blacksburg, Virginia, including my old pal, men's basketball coach, Seth Greenberg and another friend, Professor Roland Lazenby, who is the faculty advisor for the outstanding student website – www. planetblacksburg.com. But especially our prayers are with the families of the victims... What were the police thinking when they didn't shut down the campus after the first shooting? I guess they weren't, and it only cost about another 30 lives...When I talked with Lazenby, he said that he felt if the law enforcement community got a do-over, some things might have been handled differently. He reported that everyone connected with the campus was still in a state of disbelief, but that the kids and faculty were resilient and would definitely bounce back...He was teaching his reporting class to about 100 students when the second shooting spree broke out, and while the student-reporters were on the ground in the dark, they were figuring out ways to cover the story. Using their cell phones, they made calls around the campus gathering information, which was then posted on the PlanetBlacksburg website... Don Imus is an old fool. Of that there's no doubt. What he said about the Rutgers' women's basketball team was a verbal assault, whether he was trying to be funny or not. Wrong group to make a comedy target. And he probably got what he deserved because the radio business is predicated on money. And CBS along with NBC-Universal stood to lose many millions if advertisers did indeed boycott other company shows. So, Imus had to go, for business reasons. And if you believe they fired him because they were morally outraged, you'd believe just about anything. Imus has been offensive his entire career, and many times said things that were as highly inflammatory as the Rutgers comments. But he survived as his bosses turned a blind eye and deaf ear to him because he made them buckets of money. This time, the bucks were about to go elsewhere, which is what really outraged them and ultimately led to his demise. Believe me, if no advertiser spoke up, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could have marched to LA and back to NY, and Imus would still have a job. This was the radio business--and business in general – at work. Nothing else...And speaking of Jackson and Sharpton, do they really speak for the entire black population of the United States? Not if the emails I've gotten are representative of how many blacks feel. And wouldn't it be more effective if leaders such as Barack Obama, Harold Ford Jr., Oprah Winfrey, etc. putting the heat on a situation such as Imus' – rather than a couple of clowns who have their own morality issues? In case you're too young to remember, Jackson in 1984 referred to New York's Jewish population as "Hymies" and called New York "Hymietown." And Sharpton went after seemingly half the white New York law enforcement community in 1987 when he took up the case of Tawana Brawley, a young girl who claimed she was beaten, raped and smeared with feces by six cops. Sharpton was blatantly trying to ruin the lives of these men and a city prosecutor with his public declarations of their guilt day after day. One problem: it was later revealed that Brawley had fabricated the entire story. And Sharpton – to this day – refuses to apologize to anyone involved. And then we have their rantings in the matter of the Duke Lacrosse players. We all know how that one turned out. So, here you have two men who have been as offensive as Imus, calling for his ouster? Pretty hilarious to me. They certainly have the right to do it, but they have no right to claim any moral authority on the matter. They may not like it, but they reside in the same neighborhood as the man they condemned.The really sad thing about Jackson and Sharpton? They use the title "Reverend" before their names. I'm sure the Lord is proud... Joe McDonnell is an award-winning radio talk show host and investigative reporter. You can reach him at
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