ESPN Glosses Over Golden Boy's Cheap Shot

While watching the Dallas/San Antonio half-time show, TNT showed a play that happened earlier in the night, during Orlando's win over Philadelphia. Dwight Howard was bumping in the paint with Samuel Dalembert and appeared to throw a right cross with his elbow as he brought it down. Upon further review, yep, it was a cheap shot and 2 things immediately came to my mind:

1. Dwight Howard is some kind of cheap shot prodigy. Nobody saw the elbow. He wasn't thrown out of the game and none of Dalembert's teammates saw it. Even Dalembert looked like he didn't know what happened.
2. Dwight Howard will not be playing in the next Orlando game and I wouldn't be surprised if he was suspended for 2 games.

Howard is the NBA's Golden Boy though and David Stern will give him 2 games with the understanding that he can appeal it down to 1 game. Almost any other player would get 3 games. David Stern has no doubt already hired lawyers, physicists, and psychologists to testify that Howard's elbow was inadvertent, and that Dalembert actually moved into the path of Howard's elbow. Dalembert will either take a 5 game suspension or wind up in a ditch.

The worst part? Here's ESPN's take:

Howard and Sixers center Samuel Dalembert got tangled up going for a rebound in the first quarter, and Howard was called for a technical foul on the play.

Watch the play. It was clearly a dirty shot. Imagine if that was Ron Artest.

-PSon