You're Offside

European athletes are soft. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but I definitely agree with it. Not saying that there aren't any exceptions because there always are, but 95% of the time the first sentence of this paragraph is true. European hockey players don't hit as much, and European basketball players don't like banging in the low post. A prime example of a European basketball player not being physical down low is Dirk Nowitzki, which is why I'm not sure why he decided to try to be a tough guy the other night when he threw an opposing player down to the ground by the throat.

I'm not sure if Nowitzki was trying to show how tough he was, but the other night when the Mavericks were playing the Jazz, Dirk viciously fouled Andrei Kirilenko underneath the basket. As Kirilenko went to shoot he faked Dirk out and got him in the air, and the Nowitzki decided to try and decapitate Kirilenko on his way down. Dirk basically karate chopped Kirilenko's throat and then threw him to the ground. Needless to say Dirk didn't look tough at all. He looked like some punk that couldn't deal with the fake that he bit on a pump fake.

Nowitzki was only issued a flagrant-1 foul in the game, but the NBA announced that they were upgrading it to a flagrant-2 foul which means Dirk will be suspended for his game tonight against the Houston Rockets. I was a little disgusted that this wasn't a flagrant-2 foul from the start. While I may like watching players be physical, I have no stomach for players being cheap or overly physical to the point it could cause a serious injury.

There have been a number of brutal fouls in the NBA this year, and it's kind of scary because a lot of them happen in the air. It's brutal watching a guy get smashed in the head and not knowing whether he's going to land on his feet or his head when he comes down to the floor. I'm not sure if Dirk is trying to shed his soft superstar image, but if he plans on doing it with more fouls like this one he can go back to Germany because I'm not interested in watching that garbage.