Houston Rockets protest of game was a waste of time but had good purpose

The Houston Rockets protest has been denied by the NBA but it wasn’t all for naught despite being a waste of time. What was the purpose? Let’s dive.

Houston Rockets fans — the verdict is in, the NBA has made it’s ruling on the protest that the franchise submitted last week and the results aren’t too surprising but the fact that things have gone this far carries precedence.

The NBA has decided to DENY the Houston Rockets‘ request to protest the outcome of their double-overtime contest against the San Antonio Spurs back Dec. 3.  The hammer came down strong from Commissioner Adam Silver just minutes ago and apparently there will be a moral to this crazy story that went into motion last week.

Here’s the full announcement as per the NBA via ESPN’s Marc J. Spears:

The whole premise for the Houston Rockets‘ case was that the Coach’s Challenge rules weren’t properly applied when Mike D’Antoni wanted to challenge if James Harden‘s dunk went into the hoop, with 7:50 left in regulation, putting the Rox up 104-89.

Mike D’Antoni continued to press the referees for a challenge but was told that he didn’t make his request in a timely manner, despite him calling a timeout just to get his point across.

The team wanted the game replayed from that point of the game because we all know the Spurs came back from 15 points down to tie the game at 115-all with 11 seconds left in the game.  This is what resulted in the team being forced into two overtimes, eventually bowing out to the Spurs in somewhat befuddling fashion.

Although they had a case, I knew the league wasn’t interested in replaying a game, something that hasn’t been done since 2008 and it had been 25 years since a replay had been done before that point last decade.  Replays are extremely rare and there have only been six in NBA history.  Considering how the 2008 Miami Heat-Atlanta Hawks’ replay of the last 51.9 seconds of the game where nobody scored, the point was moot and it turned out to be a complete waste of time for the league.

Silver obviously felt that the Houston Rockets case wasn’t strong enough to uphold the protest

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but he has disciplined the referees for not allowing D’Antoni to challenge the call.  Not only that but there will be training provided on how to make a judgment call whenever something so peculiar as Harden’s dunk happens.

All in all, I think this was a great decision by Silver by finding a common ground to settle an important dispute that the Houston Rockets had.  I’ve continued to praise him for his leadership and his ability to think outside of the box to catapult the NBA into something special as we’re leaping into 20 years through the 21st century.

I honestly thought that the Houston Rockets‘ protest was a waste of time and that they needed to move on but I have to admit that it does bring awareness with the protest filing being a form of a check and balance to ensure that the rules of this game are enforced in an equitable manner for all parties involved.

At least the NBA does agree with the Houston Rockets in some manner.

But now that’s out of the way, it’s time for the Houston Rockets to focus on the Sacramento Kings tonight at Toyota Center to try to get their 16th win of the season.

I think this is fair-ending to a resounding protest so let’s go Houston Rockets!