I probably missed something, but when I watch the film of the incident I see the ref holding up his hand toward Rondo in a "stop" motion. He is saying "don't do it Rajon - I don't wanna hear it - stop right there and lets play ball".
Rondo presisted, got his his face, gave him the Manson lamps, and abused him verbally.
I think it was an open & shut second tech and ejection. Not really an open & shut suspension but not an unreasonable one either imo. If players are allowed to physically intimidate refs (the stare was pretty chilling) - things would get out of hand quickly there are a lot of serious badass dudes in the NBA
Just as a clarification:
Rondo was moving away from the ref with Collison between them when the ref T'd him up.
In fact, he also didn't say a word so the ref actually
didn't hear anything from him.
Also a fact - Rondo hasn't reportedly said anything offensive until AFTER the ref (unjustifiably) threw him out of the game.
In fact, I haven't been able to find one audio or even transcription of what Rondo said that was so bad as to warrant a suspension.
Further - let's be real, here - y'all are adults, right? Let's talk real.
****** is not "the n word".
* (great, apparently it's a censored word on here, though)
It is nowhere near the n word, in use or history.
While it's all well and good to try to eliminate derogatory terms from society, let's not pretend that word is not a VERY recent addition to The Forbidden List of Words Polite Society Must Not Use.
It's being used on every single school campus today, all over America, and I don't see it being enforced like the n word is. Hell, it's an
epidemic for kids of this generation to stupidly call each other "gay" as a pejorative. It's a tad ivory-towerish to thumb your nose and look down on these athletes, when your own kids are saying this suddenly-verboten word all the damn time.
(And before anyone goes personal here, I've grown up with and worked with and game with and been friends with gay guys and girls - it's no big deal to me - they're just people (and IME, good people) and they can love whoever they want to love)
For discussion's sake - here's a question:
What if Rondo didn't know the ref was gay?
Wouldn't it be ironic that he's being suspended for
unintentionally "using an epithet" at a ref who happened to be gay?
Hell, for discussion's sake, what if Rondo was gay?
Can he not use the same word that gay people call each other
all the damn time?