David Stern is a smart man who needs to get rid of a dumb rule. This rule might have cost two teams an NBA championship, so Stern should act before it rains a river of injustice on a third.

The "immediate vicinity of the bench" mandate is in place to prevent players from wandering onto the court and elevating a skirmish from Defcon 5 to Defcon 1. Of course, the spirit of the law makes all kinds of sense.

A league haunted by a couple of violent episodes from its past — the Malice at the Palace and the Kermit Washington/Rudy T punch — wants to ensure that basketball never subscribes to this primitive article of hockey's faith: Fighting is a part of the game.

Fine. But suspending any player that leaves his bench, regardless of circumstance, allows for the spirit of the rule to be trampled by the letter of it, making a mockery of what should be a fair and square athletic event.

Lamar Odom was suspended under Stern's ordinance after Portland's Rudy Fernandez was clipped from the sky by the Lakers' Trevor Ariza. Odom bodied up to Brandon Roy, who had gotten in Ariza's face, before Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis shoved Odom back to the bench.

So Odom will sit out Wednesday's game in Houston, and perhaps rightfully so. Though he didn't get physical, Odom did act in something of an agitated way.

I wouldn't have suspended him. I would've hit him with a fine and a warning that next time around I wouldn't be so kind.

But this was a regular-season game, not a playoff game, and Odom's conduct did straddle the suspend/don't suspend fence. If Stern wanted to take the tough-guy approach here and cost the Lakers a game they might need to secure home-court advantage in the Finals, so be it.

"We are disappointed with and we disagree with the league's ruling," said Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak.

He's paid to say that. And David Stern's paid to protect and preserve the integrity of his sport.

This rule doesn't help him toward that end.

Thursday's action

• Kobe, Lakers shake off Spurs
• LeBron, Cavs beat slumping Suns

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FOXSports.com analysis

• Rosen: Spurs can't match Lakers
• Hill: Doc Rivers' dilemma
• O'Connor: Stern needs to relax rule
• Galinsky: NBA Power Rankings

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Video

• Hill: Should Wade be MVP?

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Photos

• Hill: NBA's 10 most overpaid players
• Hill: NBA's 10 most underpaid players

A dozen years later, Steve Nash is staring at the same cruel fate. His best shot at the elusive ring came in the 2007 matchup with San Antonio, another series flipped on its ear by Stern's playbook.

At the close of Game 4, with the Suns about to make it a 2-2 proposition, Robert Horry delivered a hard body check to Nash that knocked him into the scorer's table and down to the floor. Horry's was a dirty move all the way, punctuated by a forearm shiver.

Reacting to the sight of their flattened quarterback, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw stepped away from their bench and onto the court.

"Phoenix may be coming of age as a franchise," Steve Kerr, the TV analyst that night, said as Nash was picked off the floor. "Fighting through a game that they really didn't have going in their favor."

Yes, the Game 4 triumph felt like a seminal moment for the Suns, who had never won a title.

That was until Stern's lead disciplinarian, Stu Jackson, announced that Stoudemire and Diaw would receive one-game suspensions, and that Phoenix would not be coming of age after all. Horry's pro-wrestling act was rewarded in Vince McMahon style.

"The purpose of the rule," Jackson said then, "is to prevent the escalation of these types of incidents and in turn protect the health and safety of our players and diminish the chance of serious injury (for) our players."

The Spurs won Games 5 and 6, beat a Utah team that Phoenix would've beaten, and then swept a Cleveland team that the Suns would've swept for the title.

So those bogus suspensions of Stoudemire and Diaw — both used to cover Tim Duncan — dramatically altered the course of Suns history. If Mike D'Antoni wins the 2007 championship, he's still in Phoenix with a long contract extension, and Shaquille O'Neal never lands there.

Whatever. Stern can't right those past wrongs, but he doesn't have to repeat them, either. He needs a sudden attack of common sense.

Remove the automatic suspensions from the books, and assume the responsibility of judging these sideline wanderings on a case-by-case basis.

If Stern sees a clear aggressor leaving the bench in search of a fight, he should go ahead and nail him. But if a player concerned for a teammate takes a few benign steps toward the scene, especially in the playoffs, Stern needs to give that man a pass.

The films don't lie, remember? Intent isn't that hard to determine, not for a smart commissioner who can't afford to govern with an incredibly dumb rule.