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Columnist Ron Borges Unethically Calls For Retribution on Dwight Howard

There’s controversial journalism, there’s irresponsible journalism, and then there’s this, the column written by Ron Borges in today’s Boston Herald that advocates “for Dwight Howard to be Rambis-ed” by the Celtics in tonight’s Game 6 in Boston.

What’s getting Rambis-ed mean?

Quite simply, this:

It’s one thing to call for an intensification of physicality from the Celtics–to suggest a strategy of hack-a-Dwight 2.0 and to dare Howard, a 60% career free throw shooter, to shoot 25 free throws–but it’s quite another to declare that “it’s time for him to eat some bloody chicklets [sic].”

One can rarely call a columnist flat out wrong in his or her argument. This is the nature of subjective persuasion.  But Ron Borges, you are wrong.

There is nothing more inexcusable in sports than the intent to injure.  Not PEDs.  Not age or gender falsification.  Not even JaMarcus Russell.

To advocate for such a course of action, knowing full well that the fallout would include suspensions, fines, and a hit to the league image–is beyond bush league: it personifies the apex of despicable journalism.

But even beyond the message of the article, the article’s premise–that Dwight Howard is a dirty player–may even lack founded substance. You’d expect that if Howard were such a player that Celtics Coach Doc Rivers, presumably the person most concerned with such a problem, would express such concern.  Instead, Rivers seemed almost to extol the intensity of Howard’s game:

“Listen, he’s a physical guy. We know that, and he should be. That’s his gift, so he’s doing what he should do, and we’ve got to do a better job of taking the hits, I guess.”

‘Doing what he should do.’  That hardly sounds dirty to me.

Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy felt similarly, calling Borges’ accusations “ridiculous”:

“You know, it’s so funny the way things go, because we went down 0-3 and a lot of you guys were calling us ’soft’ and everything else. Now we’re like ‘bullies.’ So, I don’t know what we are. You guys change from day to day.”

The funny thing is, although Dwight Howard has rarely been called soft, Van Gundy is right in that his intensity has been highly questioned in the past.  You can’t give him the ball with the game on the line.  He needs to be more assertive.  He should try cursing once in a while.

All of a sudden, that player has a will to win so intense that he has the will to injure?

Mike Breen doesn’t think so, and if you go to 1:24 of the clip below, you will hear him say (and see the proof) that Howard’s elbowing of Glen Davis is clearly unintentional:

As for the other examples that Borges gives–referring to shots on Paul Pierce (who we know has a flair for the dramatic when it comes to injuries, or so it has been said), Rajon Rondo, and Kevin Garnett–basketball is, at the end of the day, “a very physical sport,” as Howard says.  It is the nature of the beast.  And Dwight Howard is finally learning the beast that he has to become in order to make a true impact in the playoffs.

But the amazing thing is, Ron, even if Dwight Howard is a dirty player (something that the league front office would address), the irresponsibility of your column is far more horrifying than any blow that he could deliver.