I watched the hit one Youtube a few times and it was ugly. There were all kinds of comments calling Dunleavy. I just want to say that Dunleavy has not had a reputation for this type of foul. Every body needs to be given another chance. I mean a lot of us will tell our children to give their friends another chance but as spots fans we can be very unforgiving. If he develops a long history of this kind of thing it would be different, but right now I would like to think that it was a decent person that did an uncharacteristically bad move.
There is another player I can think of. His name is Bynum. A few years ago he made head lines for a truly nasty foul in a play off game as his team the LA Lakers was about to be eliminated, by the Dallas Mavericks. He elbowed a guard who had made it passed him and was going in for a lay in. the guard could have been seriously injured but was ok. He apologized and said that wasn't in his character it wasn't how he was raised. He made it sound like an abbe ration.
That sounded good until I did a little research. A few months earlier he did something similar to a guy who took a nasty spill. From the way he landed I was amazed the other player didn't go to the hospital, but he got right up and was fine.
A year and a half earlier the story did not end as well. He foiled another fellow who had beaten him off the dribble and elbowed him so hard in the chest that it broke two ribs and I think may have collapsed a lung. The man was a man named Gerald Wallace who played for the Bobcats. In each of these incidents the other person had batten him on the dribble and looked like he was going to score. So while his opponents were exposed and completely defenseless in the air, and he had both feet solidly on the ground hit his opponent with his elbow with all the force he could muster. In basketball that is one of the most dangerous kind you can do. Look, you do that once and you can make an argument that that was not really you. When it happens three times it becomes a sign of habit and characters. If I was an NBA coach I would not want him on my team even though at the time this happened he was one of the best centers at the time.
I am not saying that after his long history of dirty play that he cannot be forgiven, but you have to treat him differently. If I was the GM of a team he played for I would lay down the law. If he committed a foul like that under my watch we would evoke the bad conduct clause and revoke his contract. I think the league should have also had a talk with him. Explain that the has three strikes against him and a fourth would mean that they would take every means at their disposal to punish him to the limits of their abilities.
In the end end some might cry injustice. Would it be right for him to have his season end halfway though for a foul like this and a teammate only get a two game suspension? Yes if it's Bynum's fourth offense and his teammates first. How you deal with players has to be based on them and their histories. As long as both players got a similar punishment for their first offenses I am fine with it and I think it is just.
I think that is the way it is in families. We have to be forgiving and allow children to make mistakes, but we have to be firm when it is necessary and we have to mold our discipline around the specific need and history of our children. There is nothing wrong with having a more severe penalty for a child if they have a long history for doing something and lesser penalty for a first offense. We do that in our criminal justice system for a reason.