On Noah

Sports is the original reality television. Pro wrestling and the NBA Draft Lottery aside, it's unscripted. We don't know the outcome beforehand. And we swarm like pirañas on the human drama of the game.

It's why Fox gives us incessant, interminable uber-closeups on their world series broadcasts: so we can read the emotions of the pitcher in every facial twitch. How long did the director in the truck leave a camera on Russell Westbrook until we could finally cut to the money shot of a young, rising star player looking less than happy about sitting out the entire fourth quarter of a conference finals game while his backup led his team to victory?

This is why the camera is even on Kobe Bryant and Joakim Noah as they return, fuming, to the bench. We want to experience the drama of the gladiatorial competition in all its raw, often undignified, intensity.

Are you really surprised to see testosterone-drunk competitors hurl an inappropriate word meant to diminish the masculinity of the objects of their anger? Isn't catching that moment exactly why the camera is on Kobe Bryant and Joakim Noah in the first place?

It's not dignified, and it's not appropriate. That word is not one that people like Bryant and Noah would use in civil conversation. But the heat of competition is not where one would normally expect civility. In fact, in physical sporting endeavors civility is often considered a weakness, whether it's the fabled "neanderthal gene" of a football player or an NBA player being lauded for being a "killer".

This isn't a friendly pickup game. You're not going to turn loose athletes who have been selected out from a young age for their ability to unleash the angry animal within them to out-fight their opponents … and then expect complete decorum and civility at all times within the arena. It's like training a pit bull to be aggressive, then putting him down for mauling someone.

It certainly makes sense that the NBA doesn't want this as part of their public face, their brand.

If you want to fine Kobe Bryant for disrespecting an official's authority, OK. If you want to fine Joakim Noah for losing his temper and insulting a paying customer, OK.

But fining either of them the equivalent of the yearly salary of several average Americans in a fit of political correctness is a hypocritical exercise in self-righteousness. If the NBA doesn't want us to see the dirty underbelly of competition, then they should tell the cameras to stop seeking it out like a Predator drone after a terrorist.

Just because the masses may crave the voyeuristic pleasure of indignity revealed in authentic, unscripted drama doesn't mean you have to give them every bit of it, any more than the NHL should feed the bloodlust of their fans who still want to see fighting.

We went looking for this. Let's stop pretending to be shocked and appalled when we found it.