Rule books are usually giant and if you’ve ever tried reading one they’re incredibly dry. So, we can all understand if a player doesn’t know every single rule included therein.
Sometimes you forget that something is against the rules… but for the most part, people remember that you can’t choke your opponent in basketball, but Evan Fournier appears to have forgotten this.
Although, sometimes FIBA rules are different… but no, yeah, choking is pretty much always no bueno.
Fournier is currently an NBA free agent but played for the New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons last season.
This summer, he’s playing for the French National Team and they were playing Germany in an international friendly in Cologne, just a few weeks before the Summer Olympics in Paris.
What happened could make any France-Germany matchups at the game appointment viewing.
Fournier found himself getting fouled by Germany’s Dennis Schröder — who plays for the Brooklyn Nets — late in the second quarter with France holding a commanding lead over Germany.
Fournier didn’t appreciate the foul and the two exchanged some words and then Fournier started channeling Homer Simpson and began strangling Schröder.
Players from both sides rushed in to break things up, but oddly enough, no one seems to have separated Fournier from Schröder. While the strangling had stopped, the two still had holds on each other and continued to talk things out.
Finally, an official stepped in to separate the two, which got boos from the crowd.
As nasty as it was, the crowd was loving it. They showed a replay of the initial stranglin’, and it got such a big cheer from the French crowd that you’d think they had just shown a clip from a Jerry Lewis movie (they love him over there).
France and Germany are in the same group for the opening round of the Olympic tournament, so you may want to check that out in a few weeks in case there are any more fireworks.
