Sports 4 Dorks

I’m going to try and be delicate with this, even though I’m
pretty sure as to where this sort of post will lead. One group of fans is going to dominate the other in this instance, because for over a decade, the
Toronto Raptors have boasted an enthusiastic and devoted fan base rivaled only
by outposts in New York and Los Angeles, while the next Hawks fan that I
meet will be the third Hawks fan that I’ve ever met.

On December 11^th, in the closing minutes of a
Raptors win over the Hawks that saw Toronto
guard T.J. Ford offer his best game of the year, Ford was clotheslined by
rookie Hawk forward Al Horford while attempting a breakaway layup.

Ford, who
has a history of spinal and neck issues, was likely knocked out by Horford’s
foul while still in the air, and needed a stretcher to leave the court. Though
cleared to play, Ford (who missed the entire 2004-05 season after a falling
hard to the court after a hard foul from Mark Madsen) has yet to return to game
action.

Tonight, Horford will play his
first game in Toronto since the foul occurred, and he’s going to get booed.
Roundly.

My question to you is, does the man deserve it? Here’s a
clip of the foul:

My thoughts on the foul haven’t changed a bit since I saw it
live
that night: forgetting history, it was a stupid foul in a vacuum, and a
thoughtless foul considering the context of Ford’s past.

Rookie or not, it’s
Horford’s job to be aware of these things. But, in my opinion, it wasn’t a
dirty foul. It was a lazy foul, Horford didn’t move his feet well enough to
stop Ford from breaking away, and wanted to make one last stab at a block or
foul, but it doesn’t appear that he wanted to smack Ford on his head.

And he certainly didn’t want to knock him, see him fall, and
you know the rest.

I’m not expecting the Air Canada Centre denizens to keep
quiet tonight. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the reasonable posts on this thread from
RealGM.com, but obsessive NBA fans who post on message boards don’t make up
the majority of seats at NBA games.

A lot of times those seats are filled with
loutish mugs who can’t be bothered to remember the name of the backup small
forward, though they still like to act the part of a die-hard. And, to these
mugs, what "die-hards" do is boo like madmen.

I don’t think they should, but that’s just me. What’s your
take?