In news so amazingly unexpected that you could be forgiven for instantaneously soiling yourself on hearing it, a professional athlete not prosecuted for an alleged sexual assault has been hit with a civil lawsuit. If you’ve managed to pick yourself up off the floor after such shocking revelations and feel your nerves are up to it, read on for more from the International Herald Tribune.

A woman has filed a $2 million (€1.56 million) civil lawsuit against Portland Trail Blazers forward Zach Randolph, claiming he sexually assaulted her.

The lawsuit, which also seeks unspecified punitive damages, was filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. The woman is identified as Jane Doe.

She filed a criminal complaint in the alleged assault on Aug. 14. But Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schrunk announced in September that he would not prosecute the case against Randolph, who was never named as a suspect by police.

I’m no legal expert, so perhaps someone out there with a law degree or related qualification can help me out. How often, in your experience, have individuals not even named as a suspect by the authorities subsequently had civil lawsuits filed against them? In those instances where it did happen, how many of the accused parties have been millionaires? What makes this affair seem all the more suspect to me is the specific wording of the suit.

The woman’s suit claims Randolph’s actions "constitute, by any definition, an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct, and they also exceeded any reasonable limit of social toleration."

While I may not have passed the bar, I do know a little bit about evasive phraseology, and what’s written above in no way implies a crime. If "an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct" constituted a felony, a fat guy I twice saw clipping his toenails on the subway would be doing a twenty-to-life bid right now. So, what exactly was this egregious offence apparently worth seven figures?

The woman said Randolph assaulted her Aug. 11 in a hotel room after he offered her $500 (€390) to perform a sex show with another woman in the room.

The woman acknowledged in her complaint that she had been drinking that night.

The suit seeks $1 million (€780,000) for sexual battery and $1 million for the intentional infliction of severe emotional distress.

Now I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t seeking two million dollars in a civil lawsuit from no broke African-American gentlemen. Let’s leave it at that.

- CYE

If the NBA wants to solidify its reputation as an organisation which hates its players, it’s been going about things the right way lately. After instituting rules governing their dress both on and off the court, making them play with a ball they (almost) all despise and telling the zebras to drop a t-bomb on them whenever they so much as scratch their balls, Stern and pals were beginning to run out of ways to let their talent know they consider them equal to shit.

Thankfully, one of the brains behind the scenes realised they could tighten the clamps a little more with a beautiful one-two punch of a weak ejection and an unjustified fine. Let’s take a look back at a report from Sunday’s Charlotte Observer.

Charlotte Bobcats point guard Brevin Knight expects to be fined by the NBA for comments made Friday, following his ejection from a loss to the Seattle Supersonics.

He doesn’t regret those comments. He repeated the central point Saturday: That he believes NBA referee David Guthrie cursed at him, provoking the situation between the first and second technical fouls.

"If I have to get a phone call (from the league office), then I’ll deal with it,’’ Knight said Saturday. "Some things need to be said, so they would be said.’’

So, do I really believe that Guthrie cursed at Brevin Knight? Honestly, I do. It’s not the sort of accusation a player’s just going to pull out of his ass, especially one with as decent a reputation as Knight’s. That said, refs are still people (just barely), and you can expect them to slip up every once in a while, so I’m not going to make out that this should be seen as some sort of a scandal. What I do feel, however, is that Brevin should be able to speak his mind without the league crapping on him for it.

Consequently, this fining particularly pissed me off.

Brevin Knight of the Charlotte Bobcats has been fined $10,000 for failing to leave the court in a timely manner, it was announced today by Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President Basketball Operations.

The incident occurred with 2:21 remaining in the Bobcats 99-85 loss to the visiting Seattle SuperSonics at Charlotte Bobcats Arena on Friday, Nov. 10.

If you’re going to take ten grand from a guy for defaming the league, go ahead and do it. But please, at least man up and admit why it is that you’re punishing the dude. Are you telling me that this “failing to leave the court in a timely manner” verdict couldn’t have come any sooner? After all, the game in question was on Friday of last week. Is there no statute of limitations on these petty levies?

Do you think the league is really fining Knight for his comments? Has the NBA been right in its actions thus far? Let me know your thoughts on the matter by leaving a comment on this article. 

- CYE

Please know this before we start: I don’t watch soap operas. I have never followed a reality television show. I basically hate people and would find it difficult to care less about what so-called “celebrities” get up to when they’re not doing what it is that made them famous. For some reason, though, this whole storyline has me hooked on human drama like a teenage girl on that show about the Californian stereotype kids (“The O.D.”?).

Those of you unfamiliar with the Bowen-Thomas-Popovich-Jackson affair (as nobody is calling it) can read my coverage of it right here. Today, in reaction to the numerous reports that he basically threatened to break Bruce Bowen’s neck, Isiah Thomas has issued one of the greatest denials in history. Check this out.

Bowen told a San Antonio newspaper he heard Thomas yell to break his neck.

"That’s not true," Thomas said. "I said the next time he goes up, stick your foot underneath his like he sticks his under yours and see how he feels if his foot is broken."

Before facing the Cavaliers last night, Thomas said he did not regret seeing the replays of his verbal attack on Bowen and his yelling to his players, "Next time he does that to you, break his [bleeping] foot."

So, just to get the facts in order, you didn’t want to break his neck, but you were more than happy to fuck his foot up? Splendid. If that reads like sarcasm, I apologise; in all honesty, I believe it would be nothing but just if Bruce Bowen rolled his ankle after someone denied him his landing space. I’m not saying that he means to injure his opponents (although I did yesterday), but he deserves to be paid back for what has been shown time and again to be a dangerous tactic.

After admitting that you’d like to see an opposing team’s player have his foot broken, it’s only natural to be worried that people think you’re a little crazy. It’s for this reason that Isiah took a moment to qualify his previous statements.

"I do know this - if we were playing in a park, I don’t think he’d stick his foot under anybody’s shot in the park," Thomas said.

Translation: “I’m not nutty; I’m gangsta.”

- CYE

After skipping a few weeks in his rehab schedule to make it back in time for the start of the season, Mike Bibby has aggravated his wrist injury in training. With their lack of depth in the backcourt, the Kings appear to be very much up Crap Canyon without a paddle right now. Seriously, who the hell is going to run the point for Sacramento if Bib can’t play? Jason Hart? Ronnie Price? Quincy Douby?

Still, Muss sounds confident that Mike will make it back in time for Memphis.

"We have concern about getting proper rest for that thing and making sure he’s ready to play against Memphis," Kings coach Eric Musselman said. "It’s obviously continuing to bother him."

For those of you interested in the circumstances surrounding the moment of injury, Kevin Martin is here…to shed virtually no light on the situation.

"It was on defense," he said. "He was guarding somebody, went in, and I guess he got caught. He grabbed it right when it happened. He’s going through a lot of pain right now with that."

Just because his infantile mumblings warm my heart, here’s more from Martin, this time concerning the Kings’ plans to fill the void left by their only legitimate point guard.

"It’s the same answer (as before)," Martin said. "Other guys have got to step up, one through five, and not just at the point guard position. We’ve got a lot of talent on that bench that hasn’t played that much, so we know they can come in and give us a hand."

Something tells me this guy shouldn’t plan on a career in coaching or analysis when he hangs his sneakers up.

- CYE

It’s always been difficult for me to criticise Shaq and, with fifteen years of wear-and-tear beginning to show in his numbers, it’s something I’m having to do increasingly frequently nowadays. Unfortunately, another milestone in his downturn came on Sunday when Yao played him for 34 and 14 while holding The Diesel to 15 and 10. Is this the takeover I’ve been expecting (and dreading) since Yao first began to find his feet in the league?

Whether or not this will be seen as the moment when Yao staked his claim to being the best big on the planet, one thing’s for damn sure: Shaq doesn’t think much of the monster numbers Yao Ming’s been putting up of late.

"He’s pretty much the same, just big, 7-6," O’Neal said. "He’s just doing what he’s supposed to do."

Yao, on the other hand, was a little more deferential.

"My only chance against Shaq is to keep him on the run," Yao said. "Shaq is much stronger and bigger than me. My only chance on beating him is to keep running and running against him.”

Not content with emulating Shaq’s big statlines, Yao also worked on taking the “Big Quotable” nickname from him as well.

"Every time I score on him I was happy like a kid, like a kid getting candy on Halloween because it’s really too hard to score on him, too hard. He’s just great."

- CYE

Oh, how the plot thickens. Apparently, Greg Popovich (a class act by all other accounts) is still complaining that Isiah Thomas and the New York management did his buddy Larry Brown wrong. Under the terms of the severance package, which big boss man David Stern oversaw, LB was given a cool $18.5 million to get out of town. While Pop is claiming that it’s crooked to give a guy half the bread you initially offered, I see it as money for nothing. I sit on my ass most of the day, and nobody’s paying me a cotdang thing for it. Count your blessings, Larry.

Phil Jackson, in a most un-Zen moment, decided it was time to weigh in with his thoughts, raising a legitimate point in asking why Coach Greg had nothing to say when Donald Sterling was treating contracts as if they weren’t worth the paper they were written on. Over to you, Jax.

"If [Brown’s settlement] was a concern to people, Popovich probably should have weighed in on Sterling about two or three coaches ago when he was breaking all their contracts. That was the time he should have been backing up coaches, not about a $40-million situation that ends up with $18 million. It’s about guys that were owed $500,000 or $600,000 who needed that kind of money."

Tell ‘em why you mad, Phil. While I dispute that the NBA coaches who were shafted really needed the cash (if the cheque you don’t get has five zeroes on it, you’re probably not starving), PJ is right: In the grand scale of management fucking their people over, this can be seen as a minor victory for the fired party. After a season such as the one he went to such lengths to ruin, most of New York would probably think a farewell payment of a penny would be a little generous for Larry Brown.

I hate to lower the tone (as if that’s possible), but I can’t be the only one who thinks that Phil looks like Colonel Sanders in the shot above. I didn’t see it at first, but the sudden urge for fried chicken led me to make the connection. There’s a marketing campaign in there.

- CYE

After threatening to do to Bruce Bowen what so many have dreamed of, Isiah Thomas is apparently not going to be disciplined by the league. Word from those courtside during the game is that Zeke and Greg Popovich spent half the evening cussing one another out, only to kiss and make up afterwards. Over to Frank Isola of the NY Daily News for more on the story.

Bowen accused Thomas of threatening him during the game, saying the coach said he would "break his neck." Thomas became upset because he felt Bowen was intentionally sticking his foot under Jamal Crawford as the Knick guard was leaving his feet to take a jump shot, a tactic that Bowen has been accused of by Vince Carter and Ray Allen.

You know why Isiah thinks Bruce was doing that? Because he was. At first I refused to believe that anyone would intentionally jeopardise another player’s livelihood with such a cheap play, but I’ve seen him do it far too often now to attribute it to coincidence. Of course, Bowen would claim that he’s simply boxing out, and that it’s just “bad luck” that so many guys come down and roll their feet. Nope. It’s unfortunate when it happens once. It’s bad luck when it happens twice. When it happens five-plus times, it’s dirty.

You can check the technique if you don’t believe me. I’ve been balling since way back when, and never once has a coach taught me to close my man out by covering him diagonally and putting one foot directly underneath him. Even if that really is how Bruce learned to do it and every sprained ankle he’s caused really has been an unhappy accident, you’d think he’d have switched it up at some point to save both rebounds and ankles.

Thomas didn’t get quite so technical in his discussion of matters as I have, however. If you’re reading this out to a child right now, I advise you to scan ahead so as not to inadvertently teach them any new words.

Thomas also shouted to his players that the "next time he does that, break his fucking foot."

"I’d beat the shit out of somebody," Thomas said Friday. "Really, I would fucking murder them…There’s certain things you don’t do." 

Naturally, Tim Duncan was the voice of reason amidst the heated exchanges.

"It’s a bad situation when a coach puts himself in that position and goes after a player," Duncan said on Saturday. "It’s very uncalled for. I don’t know what his intentions were with that and we have bigger plans than trying to hurt somebody."

Hold up: “bigger plans”? Are they scheming to dig a tunnel to the opposing team’s locker room so that Beno Udrih can piss in their Gatorade before every game? You’re on watch, Duncan.

Check out the plays in question in the clip below, and let us know if you think Bruce Bowen has ever intentionally injured an opposing player.

1. Undergo a course of counselling and prescription medication, and hope that you can make a full recovery from the trauma you suffered last night.

2. Lie low for a few months and get some plastic surgery, a beard and a wig, then return to the league undercover as a European.

3. See if the Virgin Islands might still be interested in sponsoring you as a swimmer.

Whatever you choose, you have to do something after the punishment dealt to you by young LeBron James yesterday evening. I mean, the kid straight-up assaulted you, and in front of your own people. If a man made that sort of contact with me in the street, I’d consider it a form of violation; you should, too. I might feel confused and dirty for a while, but at least my shame wouldn’t have been caught on camera for all to see.

Talking of which, we offer you a clip of the assault in question here. A word of warning, however: If you’re eating anything which could potentially become lodged in your windpipe, you might want to swallow before you watch this. Things get ugly.

I’m not usually the type to kick someone while they’re down (I lie), but I couldn’t resist posting a similar incident perpetrated by then-Raptor Vince Carter a few seasons back. Let’s hope we don’t see this sort of thing again, Mr. Duncan. If it ever happens again and you find it a little too much to deal with alone, I hear Frederic Weis runs group support sessions every Wednesday; it’s called "Teabagees Anonymous" or something similar.