It makes me frustrated everytime I see someone post the KO/Love tie-up in picture form and express outrage. It makes it look far more malicious than it actually was.
Who's expressing outrage? I said specifically that I didn't think it was malicious. It was excessive and dangerous, though.
It was an illegal play but theres no way there was intent to injure.
I keep seeing this. What does intent have to do with anything? I don't believe it's anywhere in the rules for punishment, mainly because finding intent in a basketball play basically equals mind-reading, and is subject to a wide variety of biases. Compare and contrast this thread with the Cavs fan equivalent for examples (don't worry though, they're all just being irrational )
"unnecessary and excessive contact"
That defines a flagrant 2.
That is vague AF but I believe it implies that intent is necessary. I mean technically isnt every foul "unnecessary". The NBA has to look at it and say was he trying to make a basketball play? Was this action to help his team get the ball or to hurt a player on the opposing team?
Thats intent and I believe implied in the rules.
No it doesn't, let alone intent to injure. The flagrant rules used to explicitly include intent, but it was dropped because it's even vaguer and subject to more bias than anything that only describes behavior.
Here are the rules for how the league office gives out flagrants and suspensions after the fact:
The League Office will consider the following factors (as well as any other relevant facts and circumstances) in determining whether to classify a foul as Flagrant "1" or Flagrant "2", to reclassify a flagrant foul, or to impose a fine and/or suspension on the player involved:
1. The severity of the contact;
2. Whether or not the player was making a legitimate basketball play (e.g., whether a player is making a legitimate effort to block a shot; note, however, that a foul committed during a block attempt can still be considered flagrant if other criteria are present such as recklessness and hard contact to the head);
3. Whether, on a foul committed with a player's arm or hand, the fouling player wound up and/or followed through after making contact;
4. The potential for injury resulting from contact (e.g., a blow to the head and a foul committed while a player is in a vulnerable position);
5. The severity of any injury suffered by the offended player; and
6. The outcome of the contact (e.g., whether it led to an altercation).
Olynyk's play checks off 3, 4, and 5; he followed through after the arm lock, and obviously injury was possible because it actually resulted, and was fairly serious. #1 is pretty vague, it doesn't seem particularly "severe" overall but someone could probably argue otherwise. While he appeared to be making a basketball play, the "recklessness" qualifier on #2 could fit there too. #6 depends on whether you consider the subsequent Perk/JR altercations count as an outcome or not. That's at a minimum half of the factors, which when you consider the injury was fairly severe, seems completely in line with a suspension.
Contrast with JR Smith, who easily hits the first 5, but probably not #6, so his suspension was a game longer - I think it could've been longer than that but at least it's consistent in being a bigger penalty. Perk on the other hand probably gets 1-4, and you'll get no argument from me that no ejection or suspension is a joke.