This might be the easiest penalty call of all time. A player in green gathers a rebound off the post with his back to the goal. A player in red then clumsily falls into him from behind, sending them both to ground. With the player in green sitting over the ball, red gets up and starts kicking him. Two of his teammates then join in and suddenly they're kicking the guy like he robbed someone's grandmother.

The penalty was awarded, but it appears no one was booked for the attack. Probably because the referee didn't want them to gang up on him next.

This has been the Dirty Tackle of the Day: a chronicling of unfortunate events.

Video via Bola Nas Costas

Since the infamous "Malice in the Palace" brawl in Detroit in 2004, the NBA has done whatever it can to avoid any perception as a league that condones or tolerates fighting. Suspensions for relatively minor tussles have increased in length and flagrant fouls have become more common to stop players from crossing any lines of safety. It's an understandable goal that mostly seems to be working.

It's also possible that these efforts have ignored separate but related issues. In an interview with Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones on ESPN's "Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable" on Wednesday, 18-year NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse detailed the stories beyond a few of his many fights as a pro. Some took place off the court, some on. All were events that the league likely wishes never happened.

Yet, despite the NBA's institutional aversion to fighting, Stackhouse presents these events as normal and sometimes even cathartic moments in the life of a professional athlete. For instance, Stack

LeBron James rests his head on Dwyane Wade's well tailored shoulder (Isaac Baldizon/ Getty).

Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade is well known for his garish sense of style, arriving at various high-profile games in everything from hot pink pants to Dwayne Wayne-ish flip-up glasses. Last week, Wade received criticism (read: lots of jokes on Twitter) for arriving to Game 4 of the Miami Heat's series against the Chicago Bulls in a suit with pants that went well above the high-water trend and towards something akin to capri pants. The look emphasized just how bold Wade is willing to be to make a fashion statement.

Given that the Heat take the postseason very seriously, it's easy to wonder how Wade has the time to seek out these off-the-beaten-path looks in the midst of the most important portion of the basketball year. The answer, naturally, is that he and his stylist picked out all his outfits for the playoffs ahead of time. From a Business Insider transcript of an ESPN Radio interview with Calyann Barnett, said stylist (via TBJ):

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

Also, that's not a typo — we're going two deeper today.

C: Hawks.com. "Twenty-five years ago on May 22, 1988, two Hall of Famers staged what is widely considered to be the greatest one-on-one battle in NBA Playoff history." In celebration of that momentous mano-y-mano showdown, Micah Hart goes in-depth and all-out with an oral history that features recollections of the battle as remembered by combatants Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins, their teammates, the people who covered it and more. Very good, very fun, very well done.

PF: Sports Illustrated. Lee Jenkins spent a week with the Memphis Grizzlies during the second round of this year's playoffs for a story that, among other things, introduced us to Buckets, Quincy Pondexter's Husky puppy. It offers a pretty interesting perspective at what the day-to-day operation of a playoff team looks like, and is well worth your time.

SF: Pro Hoops History. Before he was the definition of a ref-hating homer who makes Boston Celtics broadcasts either must-see TV or borderline-unwatchable, depending on your rooting interest, Tommy Heinsohn was a dynamic scorer and inveterate gunner who attempted nearly as many shots per minute as Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Curtis Harris takes a closer look at the playing career of the Celtics legend, one of the newest enshrinees in Harris' self-styled Hall of Fame.

(Reuters)

Manchester City Football Club have announced that they have purchased Major League Soccer for an undisclosed sum. This comes days after it was revealed that the Premier League club owned by Sheikh Mansour will co-own MLS's 20th franchise, New York City FC, which will begin play in 2015. And according to Man City, the decision to buy the whole league arose from their desire to eliminate its tight salary cap.

"We're very excited about the NYCFC project and so we've wasted no time in working towards building the team," Man City CEO Ferran Soriano told reporters. "But then we found out about this 'salary cap' that is already prohibiting us from signing all the players we want and giving them all the money we want to give them. So we asked our partners at the New York Yankees what it was and they had no idea either. I mean, it's a nonsense phrase like 'football bat' or 'Champions League winner Roberto Mancini.' So we decided to just buy the whole league and now it's gone."

Though Man City

Tuesday night’s draft lottery was typical – both a spectacle and spectacularly boring, and you get the feeling that Houston Rocket general manager Daryl Morey was more than happy to sit it out.

Not only did Morey’s Rockets make the playoffs this season for the first time since 2009, but for once Morey doesn’t have a battalion of draft picks he’s hoarding. After owning three draft picks in the 2012 NBA draft, Morey happily sent each of his 2013 first rounders elsewhere via trade. And though he’ll be interviewing prospects for Houston’s No. 34 selection in next month’s draft, the playoff berth and iffy talent level have Morey in a good mood.

As evidenced by his Twitter feed, on Wednesday afternoon. Check these out:

Best draft interview answers ever part 1: player, can you pass a drug test? [grabs table] TODAY?!?

— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) May 22, 2013

(WESH)Early Wednesday morning, an FBI agent shot and killed someone they were questioning for his connections with the Boston Marathon bombers. Ibragim Todashev, the suspect, was an MMA fighter with a 1-0 professional record.

Todashev, who was reportedly a friend of deceased bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, fought in July of 2012. He submitted Bradford May with a guillotine in the first round of their bout at Real Fighting Championships in Florida.

Khusen Taramov, a friend of Todashev's, said that Tsarnaev and Todashev trained together in Boston. Tsarnaev trained and competed as a boxer.

"He used to talk on the phone with him (Tsarnaev)," said Taramov. "They talked last time a month ago. After the bombing, I couldn't believe it."

Todashev was reportedly being questioned about a triple-murder in Massachusetts in September of 2011. The FBI said in a statement Todashev posed an imminent threat to the agent.

Richard Dumas during the 1993 NBA Finals (Getty Images)

In the spring of 1993, Richard Dumas appeared to be the sort of dynamic young talent prepped to finally put the Phoenix Suns over the top. The franchise was the NBA’s latest hot thing, basking in the popularity of the southwestern suburb boom, falling behind MVP Charles Barkley and appearing set to dethrone a weary Chicago Bulls club in the Finals. The Suns lost in six to the three-time champs, but with Michael Jordan retiring the next fall and a wide-open NBA landscape about to hit, Dumas figured to be the wing element needed to support Barkley on his way to a first NBA championship.

Instead, as was the case throughout his childhood and college career, Dumas’ cocaine use got in the way of him contributing to the Suns. He’d miss the entire 1993-94 season, and be out of the NBA by 1996 as a result.

In a must-read feature, the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro recently caught up with the since-recovered Dumas in his hometown of Tulsa:

His grades were fine. He never got in a fight. Dumas’ energy outlet was petty crime, busting windows and stealing candy from stores. His idle time turned him to drugs and alcohol. He said he tried alcohol at age 5 and marijuana at age 9.

He blames his increased drug use, including cocaine, on former first lady Nancy Reagan.