The NBA is consistent.
The NBA has imposed the same punishment on James for doing the same moves as VanVleet for hitting him with a $15,000 fine.
That is more than 125 times the price of an authentic NBA basketball today. The diameter of the balls would be 99 feet each.
The New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets had a coach named John Tortorella who described players as having building-sized balls. The gentlemen's balls are still enormous, but they are less than that.
If you put two basketball courts side by side, each ball would be big enough to cover the entire area, even at the halfway point, where the diameter of the spheres cover the horizontal plane. You might have to get the Jumbotron out, but the ball would fit comfortably under the roof of most NBA arenas, with 40-plus feet to spare.
Those are some very big balls, and all the more impressive that, as invisible and illegal as they are, VanVleet, James, and others would dare to carry them around on the court, not to mention their ability to carry both in their hands while dancing. It is silly that the NBA is punishing it because it has been part of the league's culture for a long time.
A salute to all the men who followed in the footsteps of Cassell. If the NBA wants to legislate on it, they could ask anyone doing the dance to make a donation to a local youth program. It should be about 250 basketballs.
