Disorder On The Court

•Address the matter of the Big Man's Code, as expressed here by Mahorn: "A guy goes for the hole, he's got to understand that's the big man's land. He's got to figure on contact." The league should toughen up the rules against flagrant fouls. There's simply no interpretation of the rules that would permit a player to be "laid down," gently or otherwise.

•Adopt the three-ref system for next season. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the three-referee system cut down the altercations when we had it before," says Darell Garretson, the NBA's chief of officials. "And it would work again.... Certainly cleaning up the weak-side coverage would be a big factor. We can't always do that now when we're watching the ball." The estimated cost, according to Thorn: $1,500,000 for the salaries and expenses of 15 additional referees.

Overall, the NBA has tried its best to deal with violence. Bigger and bigger bodies are flying around in a playing area bound by dimensions that were established when players were much smaller. And since there's very little support for a restructuring of the game by, for example, widening the lane or increasing the size of the court, it's going to take a concerted effort by everyone—league office, referees, management, coaches and players—to keep the extreme physicality that sometimes results in violent acts out of the game.

"Somewhere along the line we're going to have a player get hurt," says Laker general manager Jerry West. "We've got to get people to wake up and realize that they're messing with careers."