J.R. Smith Has Me Torn

This prison sentence calls for another tatoo

Denver Nuggets shooting guard J.R. Smith has always been a player I enjoy watching.  So he’s had attitude problems in the past and might be a cancer in the locker room, the guy can flat out score.  Oh, also he can flat out kill his friend in an auto-accident.  That last thing does turn me off a little bit. 

Though I’d forgotten as I’m sure many others had, Smith was involved in a fatal car accident two years ago in New Jersey.  He and the passenger in his vehicle were ejected after Smith sped through a stop sign at over 60 miles per hour.  His car collided with another vehicle, injuring two other people, and Smith’s friend wound up dying from his injuries.  Smith had not been drinking and seems to have cooperated with authorities since the accident. 

J.R. was handed a 90-day prison term but with 500 hours of community service, that will be knocked down to 30-days.  His community service will likely be visiting children in hospitals, which makes me wonder how many of those NBA Cares commercials were made while players were performing court ordered community service.  ‘Gilbert Arenas helped build a playground, Ron Artest picked up trash on the side of the highway and I visited sick kids in the hospital.  I’m J.R. Smith and I knocked 3 hours off my community service because the NBA is where arrests happens.’

Now I’m a little torn on this one.  I want to see J.R. succeed.  But I took Donte Stallworth to task for killing a pedestrian and only getting a month behind bars.  I also spoke out against the man who killed Nick Adenhart.  Doesn’t that mean that I have to put my personal bias aside and demand a stricter punishment for Smith?  No, because I make the rules and you can’t make me. 

For the first time ever, and hopefully the last, I have to agree with Jay Mariotti.  He obviously abides by the policy that if you like someone, you can be a hypocritical ass and let them get away with anything without chastising them.  See, Jay is in a deep, steamy love affair with himself, thus he comes down hard on people for doing something he’s already done. 

So I don’t think I’ll criticize the sentence in the J.R. Smith case.  Alcohol wasn’t involved and the only person who lost their life was his passenger, who was a consenting adult who had to know the dangers of riding with J.R.  It’s a tragedy that a young man lost his life, but should Smith pay for it by losing a chunk of his?  Of course not, I want to see him stroke it from 30-feet out and now that his license has been suspended, he’ll have to shoot from distance more.  See, because he can’t drive. 

Besides, Smith had an astonishing 28-points on his license a full 2-years before the accident and he’s been hit with 2 speeding tickets in Colorado since the accident.  There’s about a 1-percent chance that he doesn’t appear before a judge again with the possibility of jail time looming.  So we might have to sacrifice another innocent life, we will be blessed with witnessing an amazing athlete perform.  In the end, isn’t that all that matters?

Tags: basketball, Denver Nuggets, J.R. Smith, NBA

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