NEW YORK.  The NBA today announced that it would begin to impose delay of game penalties on teams whose free-throw shooters blow kisses to wives or girl friends in attendance.

The practice, first adopted by Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets, has mushroomed as players use it as a silent form of bragging about their sexual conquests.

"I got more girlfriends in Shaker Heights than Kidd has in the whole Eastern Conference," Cleveland guard LeBron James said to reporters last week after blowing 34 kisses in a game against the Clippers. 

The penalty for a kiss-blowing-related delay would be loss of possession, plus a free throw for the opposing team beginning with the second infraction in a game. 

Kidd, who was charged with domestic violence in 2001 while with the Phoenix Suns, is believed to have developed his signature gesture as a means of overcompensating for the anguish that domestic violence brought to him and his wife Joumana. 

"It was cheaper than buying her a big rock," Kidd said, referring to the massive ring Kobe Bryant purchased for his wife after the Lakers' star was accused of raping another woman at a Denver hotel.

For her part, Joumana Kidd says that she appreciates her husband's gesture, but wishes he would swear off verbal as well as physical abuse.  "Like, I'll say to him--'Jason, please take out the trash'--and he'll get this real nasty look on his face and say 'Jouwana make me?'"

Copyright 2005, Con Chapman