Question: should every law and ideal present in American society be applied with full extent to the institution of American sports? It’s interesting to consider; my position is no, not necessarily. To give one example, Joe Posnanski questioned whether journalistic ethics should be pursued as rigorously in the sports world as they should be in the theaters of politics or other “real-world” issues, and I argued, with caveats, that they don’t necessarily need to be.

Another excuse to ask this question: this week, Lakers coach Phil Jackson criticized the quality of officiating in Game 4 of the team’s series against the Nuggets, and the league hit him with a $25,000 fine. Jackson is unrepentant; he says he’d still be bothered by the fine if it were $10. The right to free expression is arguably the highest-held ideal in our society, correct? That doesn’t matter to our major sports leagues, none of which hesitate to toss out fines to players, coaches or owners for dropping comments that allegedly break from the party line.

I do think it’s silly for the NBA to fine Phil Jackson because he called a referee a butthead, or whatever, but the issue of attempted censorship in sports doesn’t bother me much. It’s a circus in a bubble, all the participants enter the bubble willingly, and they know they’re expected to abide by the rules. The reason I bring this up, this 90,000,000th time a sports figure has been fined for saying something, is that I believe we have the definitive answer to the question I asked up top. The sports bubble is very tightly and almost completely quarantined, and since its inner and outer workings are wildly different from those of the real world, some of our real-world ideals don’t quite belong in the sports world.