Honestly people, you're grasping at air on this one. There was no "altercation". Had Jones and Elson started shoving and others got involved maybe, but that was just incidental contact.
bingo, that's the point. not a single suns' fan here would dream of bringing that duncan/elson/jones play as something the league should review all on its own (90% of us here probably didn't even remember duncan being on the floor at all). but stern and jackson (aka the confederacy of dunces) have thrown the door wide open to every and all inane suggestion.
according to the league's definition, an altercation = physical contact on a play + one of the people involved in said play is angry about something. well, based on that definition, suddenly this is no longer us "grasping at air".
- elson and jones get tangled up
- elson was angry at jones
1+2 = altercation, according to this new, league definition.
if you even want to be less extreme about the whole thing, look at the video. elson and jones get tangled, jones heads towards the other end of the court, elson rushes towards jones thinking he deserves a fight and a ref has to hold him back. clearly (according to the league), elson was in "an altercation" during that play. again, according to the league, one player being ready to fight constitutes every player being ready to fight. where was tim duncan during elson's rush at jones? already at the freaking 3 point line. it wasn't until elson ran at jones that bowen pulled him off the court, seemingly because he didn't want duncan to be in trouble. that being the case, it doesn't matter why duncan was on the floor, he was there when elson got mad, so he should be penalized.
now, don't get me wrong (or any of us, for that matter). a duncan/bowen suspension is not the goal here. the point is to highlight the idiocy that prevails as "letter of the law" justice in the league. in a perfect world, horry would get a game suspension and the idea that anything else would be discussed would be laughable.