Who are the players that play dirty, especially the ones that get away with it? I vote for that EVIL John Stockton. If nobody cares, then this thread will self-destruct in 24 hours. (MUST STOP JOHN STOCKTON)
But my feeling is, I’d rather watch him flop and set moving picks all day than have to sit through a full game of guys taking five or six steps, palming the ball, hopping twice and then trying a layup and getting the DEFENDER gets called for a foul.
I mean, I know they’re trying to improve scoring but will someone, anyone please call an offensive foul or travelling?
The X-man is pretty mean, but he gets caught a lot. Reaching back into the haze of time, I remember Bill
Lambier being one nasty mofo.
Chris Childs is annoying in a irritating chiuaua sort of way and he almost always gets away with it.
I’d have to say that John Stockton and Karl Malone are the two dirtiest players I’ve seen in the NBA. You can’t watch a Jazz game for two minutes without seeing one of them throw an elbow at someone.
Runners-up (Runner-ups?): John Starks, Charlie Ward, Dikembe Mutumbo (how many broken noses has he caused during his career?)
Kinda depends on what you mean by dirtiest. If you mean someone that gets away with anything they can get away with as long as it looks sort of legal, Stockton would fit in that category. My main example would be Danny Ferry.
Or do you mean tough guys that play physically, will bump people around, and will deliver an obvious cheap shot when necessary? If so, Charles Oakley.
Or, do you mean someone that goes into the game with the express purpose of raising welts, drawing fouls, and basically mucking up the middle? In that case, I would submit the name of Chris Dudley.
Shaq.
IMHO, Reggie Miller gets away with pushing off defenders coming around a screen far too often.
Latrel Spreewell even looks like he belongs in jail.
Hey, Charlie Ward is not a dirty player. And Spree may look like he belongs in jail to you, (what is it, his braids? His lack of full body tatoos?) but his only offense was off the court.
As a rabid Knick fan I gotta say, good defense is not dirty play.
Now Chris Childs, on the other hand. . .
I will NEVER deny that John Stockton grabs jerseys and throws elbows, then makes a ridiculous, “A foul? Moi?” face when the ref catches him. But the truth is, almost EVERYBODY in the NBA does that, and Stockton doesn’t strike me as notably dirtier than any other NBA guard. Face facts: basketball is a VERY rough, physical, contact sport, and there’s a REASON the NBA doesn’t have a Lady Byng
Trophy! “Gentlemanly COnduct” doesn’t exist, and the only guys who DON’T get mean and physical are the guys who don’t bother to play defense at all.
So, why does Stockton usually top the list of “dirtiest players”? I suspect it’s because he has such a squeaky clean, goody-goody, Christian, wholesome role model image off the court. That kind of image grates on many people, and makes many players and fans think Stockton is a hypocrite.
I mean, guys like Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman, guys who’ve ALWAYS been labelled as goons and thugs, look at Stockton and think “THAT guy does all the same things I do! THAT guy plays just as rough as I do. How come I get a bad rap, and everybody thinks he’s Donny Osmond”? So, when a surveyer asks who the dirtiest player in the league is, it’s not hard to understand why Laimbeer, Rodman, et al, would vote for Stockton.
There’s SOME justice in that, but I’m afraid I can’t blame Stockton. In basketball as in football, there’s an old saying: “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” Stockton is not really any worse than most guards- he just LOOKS worse, because plays the Mr. Nice Guy role to the hilt, off the court.
I think Bill Laimbeer will go down as the most hated player in NBA history. I don’t even think people in Detroit liked him. I wonder if his teammates even liked him. He is also one of the few NBA players of the era of free agency whose personal earnings didn’t outstrip his parents. Laimbeer was born into an extremely wealthy family.
As for current players, I’ve always thought that anyone with a Knick uniform on is a candidate for nastiest player. It seems that there is always a fight going on with somebody involved with that team. Sprewell is actually one of the more mild-mannered players on that team.
Greg Anthony is a pretty nasty player, or at least one who is short-tempered. And I have no idea what is going on inside Rasheed Wallace’s head.