Everybody Loves Bill Kennedy

There were two noteworthy injuries in the NBA over the last week, each of which elicited diametrically opposite reactions—one to a multimillionaire player, one to a referee. Guess which injury drew which response if you like, but you're going to be wrong.

The injured player is, as is often the case, Dallas Mavericks star Anthony Davis, who sustained significant enough ligament damage in his left hand on Thursday night against Utah that he is expected to miss "a number of months," a period which any ball-savvy theoretical mathematician will tell you could mean anywhere from one to the heat death of the universe. Davis has a long injury history; some internet kinesiologists have suggested that he might be made entirely of Chex Mix. Davis also had the temerity to have been traded to Dallas as the main return in the Luka Doncic giveaway, and so is doubly condemned because unlike college football and basketball, professional players do not have the power to trade themselves. The reaction to this injury, given the history that preceded it and the powerfully meh Mavericks season during which it happened, has been a rude but not entirely unwarranted shrug.