NBA Suspensions Update (12/23)

Pacers' O'Neal cleared to play

• Indiana forward Jermaine O'Neal can play against Detroit on Christmas after a federal judge upheld an arbitrator's decision to reduce the forward's suspension for fighting with fans during the Nov. 19 Pacers-Pistons brawl.

• Daniels said he ruled in O'Neal's favor before deciding the merits of the case because to make the player serve a punishment that may not be upheld could have "irreversible consequences for the player, the team, the player's future and the league itself."

For Stern, it's not over

• Stern and the NBA were never going to drop their protests of the reduction in Jermaine O'Neal's suspension. No matter what a judge said Thursday, and no matter how close we are to Christmas. The league will let O'Neal play in Indiana's next two games because it has no choice. Then Stern and his legal team will try again to convince the presiding judge that the Pacers' All-Star forward still has 10 more games to serve for his part in The Malice of Auburn Hills melee Nov. 19.

• Stern has believed from the start that no outside arbitrator should have any input on his suspension power, based on the language in the league's current Collective Bargaining Agreement. If Stern didn't keep fighting Thursday's ruling that reinstates O'Neal, a precedent would be set that league-issued suspensions can indeed be appealed to a third party ... which would certainly give the union a stronger hope of changing that language permanently in the next CBA expected to take hold next season.

Google

Google is a name that brings one thing to mind: web searching. Google has developed a reputation as the best search engine there is. But the fact is, Google is going to grow to be a thorn in the side of Microsoft, if not a true rival.

Google's moving towards making everything web-based. Right now, Google provides not only web browsing, but mail (with 10 times the memory of every other web-based email service before them), photo hosting, blogs (yup, blogger is powered by Google). Now there is talk about GBrowser, a Google powered web browser.

"So what?" you ask. Well, everything Google does seems to be based on having all of the necessary memory on the server side (that is, owned by Google). They tell you to keep all you mail saved on their servers, and never to have to delete it. They hold your pictures. They store and display your personal writings. Why is their search the most effective? No one knows their exactly algorithm, but it takes a lot of memory on their side. Now what happens when Google can give you 30 gigs of memory. Instead of purchasing a new computer, purchase a new webstation, with a processor and a connection to the internet. Google holds all your documents, and provides all the programs you need. You computer would need only RAM, no hard drive. And while the idea of having all your documents stored on the web somewhere may seem a bit scary/uncomfortable at first, it would be no different than the H: that a lot of us at UNC grew to rely on.

I guess that I was just shocked to think of Google this way. Two new ventures for Google:

• Loading Library Books onto the web, to make them searchable.
  
  • Google Checks Out Library Books
  
  
  • Google books big library deal: New project will put documents on Web


• A Desktop Search that uses Google's search algorithm to find things on your computer and Library Books.
  
  • Google, Microsoft in Search Showdown: A Must-See for 2005
  
  
  • Investors say Microsoft Search can't edge out Google and Yahoo

NBA Power: Something to keep an eye on...

Today an arbitrator gave his ruling on the appeals of the suspensions of Jermaine O'Neal, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and Anthony Johnson from the Pistons-Pacers-crowd fight. While he choose to uphold the NBA's suspensions for Artest (the rest of the season), Jackson (30 games), and Johnson (6 games), he reduced O'Neal's suspension from 25 games to 15 games.

The interesting part is that the NBA never agreed to go to arbitration, has claimed it will not listen to whatever this arbitrator decides, and basically has said that nothing will change. And David Stern has the power to do so, because it was in the last collective bargaining agreement that he was the final word on cases such as this.

What will be interesting to watch is how the NBA responds to this ruling that they have refused to acknowledge the existence of through today. It will also be interesting to see how the media portrays it. Will Stern be the bad guy for sticking to his guns? Or will be he a wimp for going back on his call?

If the suspension is reduced to 15 games, Jackson would be eligible to play on Christmas day against the Pistons...

ESPN Story