Letters: Hits keep coming on bounties

It is amazing to me that when confronted with the Saints bounty scandal, people are discussing what level of fines, suspensions and sanctions would be appropriate.

This is criminal activity. It’s Tonya Harding stuff. In that case, people went to prison. If Johnny Perp organized a couple dozen of his friends to ambush off-duty cops in bars and crush their trigger fingers, do you think the police would be talking about fines?

It was known at the highest levels of the organization. The owner wanted it stopped, but he sure didn’t inform any authorities either. It was institutionalized corruption that injured its victims. It looks to me like it meets all the requirements of a RICO prosecution.

Does perpetrating these acts on grass between chalk lines create immunity?

Richard Murphy

Whittier

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The Saints should not only be fined, and lose draft picks, they should also lose their Super Bowl trophy. We all saw the game against Green Bay and knew they were trying to injure Brett Favre.

But to find out it was part of a reward system policy by the Saints organization, is more than despicable. That is unsportsmanlike conduct. The flag must be thrown. And the guilty party thrown out.

Richard Elliot

Los Angeles

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Reading defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’ lame excuse for allowing this to happen is sickening, and I quote,

“It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it. Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it.” I guess what he really meant was that if they knew they were going to get caught, then they should have stopped it.

Throw the book at these people!

B. W. Andrews

Los Angeles

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T.J. Simers has a point in his March 6 column, several actually. “Smash-mouth” football is pretty endemic to the game. And because the size of bounty paid was merely lunch money to these guys, the bounty system was merely a symbolic focal point to rev up the defensive players. The only real difference is they turned it into a system so tawdry and crass — and have now been caught doing so.

Isn’t the only real solution for the league to pass and enforce stricter rules at the point of contact? Commit a flagrant foul and you’re out of the game, period. Do it again next weekend, and you’re suspended one game and so on. Even baseball and basketball throws players out.

If team management loses the services of key players during critical games enough times, see how fast they’ll self-police these potential season- or career-ending hits.

Joe Whitaker

Arroyo Grande

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You are so correct, T.J., also about the hypocrites’ hand-wringing and calling for heads to roll over piddling (compared to NFL player salaries) bounties. What everyone, even you, seems to overlook, too, is the fact that, in football years, both Kurt Warner and Brett Favre were geezers when they got hurt. Everyone knows that older bones injure more easily, like it or not.

Liz White

Los Angeles

Purple pain

Memo to Kobe Bryant: Because your high school education apparently did not include math, let me try to catch you up. If you are being guarded by three players from the opposing team, that leaves two opponents to guard four of your highly paid teammates. Therefore two teammates have no one guarding them. This is especially true in the last two minutes of a game. If you are unsure of the meaning of all of this, ask Mike Brown to elaborate. You are welcome.

Mike Gamboa

Buena Park

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The Lakers need a good player coming off the bench to get them rolling into the playoffs. I guess it is difficult to find someone like the Mavericks forward who won last year’s sixth-man award.

Ken Johnson

Pinon Hills, Calif.

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The Lakers need to use the amnesty clause on Mike Brown and acquire Brian Shaw from Indiana before the trade deadline.

Greg MacDonald

Fontana

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Jim Buss has personally transformed the Lakers from a championship contender and the pride of the NBA, into a mediocre second-tier team. The Lakers’ organization needs to immediately reassign him to a position more suitable to his talents. I would suggest either locker room towel boy or team mascot.

Scott Zimbler

Lakewood

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Who’s to blame for this embarrassment? The Lakers’ front office has never been more derelict. If this is the Jim Buss era, you can have it. I can’t stand it.

Michel Kassett

Los Angeles

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While the attitude of Metta World Peace is commendable and praiseworthy during the civil periods that straddle the gulf between clashes of basketball contests; in the theater of battle a little “world war” will go a long way further to secure success for the team, and peace in Lakerland.

Michael E. White

Burbank

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Both the Lakers and Clippers are starting to look like the Clippers.

Jerry Leibowitz

Culver City

Not all bad luck

OK, Kevin O’Neill has had his share of bad luck. But it wasn’t bad luck that kept Nikola Vucevic from being given the ball for three years running at USC. Whether by design or an inability to get his players to listen and feed the gifted and consistent big man now playing prominent rookie minutes with the Philadelphia 76ers, O’Neill let Vucevic take the first train out of town instead of convincing him to stay with the Trojans for his senior year. Think they could have used him?

Bad luck? Wasn’t it Napoleon who said, “Don’t give me good generals, give me lucky generals”?

John Hanson

Studio City

The Bruins

Like the proverbial broken clock, even T.J. Simers is occasionally right, and his column Wednesday was spot-on in evaluating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s comments on UCLA. John Wooden coached in an era with different kids and a different game than Ben Howland faces. Wooden probably would have opted for high school coaching in this era.

And as for the original Sports Illustrated article criticizing Howland, clearly when no NCAA violations surfaced, the author put down his pen and picked up his hatchet.

Alan Abajian

Alta Loma

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I was stunned by T.J. Simers’ snark-free column on Ben Howland. Insightful. Intelligent. Professional.

Who wrote it for him?

Jim Fredrick

Manhattan Beach

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Bill Plaschke gets it (finally). I too watched the bench during the Arizona-UCLA game against an inferior but better-coached team and one with heart because what was happening on the floor was unwatchable. No one wants to hear from Josh Smith about how the team underachieved. He could have been the catalyst and Bruin royalty instead of becoming the team’s Burger King.

And while we’re still in awards season, how about a career “non-achievement” award for Jerime Anderson, one of the biggest recruiting disappointments ever at UCLA.

Allan Kandel

Los Angeles

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I grew up in New Jersey as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Our motto, after losing one World Series after another to the Yankees, was always “wait ‘til next year.” Well, in 1955, “next year” finally came, and it was worth waiting for. Let’s be realistic. UCLA will never have another Johnny Wooden; but the Yankees never had another Casey Stengel either. Dynasties are a thing of the past in team sports. Each year truly is a new season. So UCLA fans should take heart. With a good nucleus coming back, who knows? 1955 may be only a year away.

Bart Robertson

Torrance

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Why is the basketball team of a public university staying at a hotel the night before an afternoon game at an arena located 15 miles from its campus? And then taking a bus one block from the hotel to the game?

Peter Myers

Palos Verdes

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Seriously?

Josh Smith was benched for missing the team bus by minutes...

that took the Bruins one block to the arena...

that the lumbering Smith beat on foot...

that no other team in the Pac-12 tournament used...

Coach Howland or Captain Queeg? Call it the “Arcane Mutiny.”

Steve Ross

New York

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Joshua Smith could foul out in a game of H-O-R-S-E!

Marc Popkin

Los Angeles

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