NBA FUN!!!

[Tynstar]

http://story.news.yahoo.c.../bkn_pacers_pistons_brawl

[shadytool]

saw this on the news this morning.  that fan got destroyed... right in the face.
was the game in detroit?  maybe den or sauza was there.

[Lord Nepenthean]

This is the exact reason why the NBA should be made illegal.  It is the trashiest professional sport that I can imagine anywhere.  Never since Michael Jordan have I heard anything but bad things about the NBA, its players, and its coaches.  Besides, why watch the NBA when you can root for a team whose head coach drives under the influence and has an all-criminal policy for which players get on his team?  Basketball is the greatest sport ever.  Except not.

[Tynstar]

This is the exact reason why the NBA should be made illegal.

Amen!!!!

[Sureshot]

Here's a video link (~70MB):

http://2k3.traidor.com/fa.../pacers_pistons_brawl.zip

[Arrrhalomynn]

Oh come on. Soccer has had it's riots between players for ages. With every team sport you'll get people that lose their temper.

[den68]

It was an ugly incident for sure. While it's of course wrong fans have thrown stuff onto the field of play many times in every sport. Occasionally a player will get hit. It's the responsibility of the venues security to remove that fan. What you don't see very often is a player charging into the stands to exact revenge himself. When that happens what occured last night is sadly what you get.

Ron Artest could have walked out of the Palace Friday night with nothing more than a Coca-Cola soaked jersey, instead he's suspended for the remainder of the season and facing lawsuits for sure and maybe even criminal charges.

The sad thing is that it will be a black mark on the city of Detroit far longer than the NBA, Indiana Pacers or even Ron Artest.

[den68]

This is the exact reason why the NBA should be made illegal.  It is the trashiest professional sport that I can imagine anywhere.  Never since Michael Jordan have I heard anything but bad things about the NBA, its players, and its coaches.  Besides, why watch the NBA when you can root for a team whose head coach drives under the influence and has an all-criminal policy for which players get on his team?  Basketball is the greatest sport ever.  Except not.

The NBA has no monopoly on trashiness. Criminal activity and bad fan and player behavior is unfortunately common in all of pro sports. The Kobe Bryant case was the big black cloud hanging over the NBA last year and there have been loads of others. But look at some of the other sports.

Baseball has more bench clearing brawls than any of the other sports combined. The stigma of steroid use has brought into question the legitimacy of some of the records that are falling lately. Are the miraculous accomplishments of Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds legit? or are these guys juiced?

The NFL is loaded with criminals or "alleged" criminals. Some like Rae Carruth are in prison. Some like Mark Chmura don't do time but never play again. Then you have guys like Ray Lewis or Jamal Lewis who either get aquitted, get off easy or serve their suspensions then are welcomed back and worshipped like returning heroes.

The NHL has had it's share of brutal on ice violence courtesy of guys like Marty McSorely and Todd Bertuzzi. Then you've got the vehicular homicide case of Dany Heatley and the murder for hire case of Mike Danton.

And are there any clean programs in college football or basketball anymore? The sordid tale of Chris Webber and the rest of the Fab Five oughta ring a few bells for college hoops fans. And I'm sure all you Ohio folks in this board are very familiar with one Maurice Clarett.

Yeah, it's pretty ugly all around.

[Lord Nepenthean]

Us Ohio folks were happy when Maurice Clarett was suspended and were happy when his lies were punished.  We were also happy to know that even though his new accusations are completely ridiculous (I could type about ten pages about why, but don't feel like it right now.), the university is still looking into them and would correct the problem immediately if any of what he said was true.

That said, what happened in that game is far, far different from NCAA players accepting cash from boosters or from baseball players using steroids.  There is NO excuse for what those players did.  Some (obviously not all) of the Detroit (and surely Indiana too) fans were a disgrace to sports everywhere.  Artest and Jackson in particular ought to have worse punishments than they have.  NEVER should a player enter the stands and attack a fan.  Obviously, he was in no danger of being hurt, and had he laid there, the fan would have been ejected and that would've been the end of it.  Instead, he compromised thousands of fans' security.  Imagine taking your daughter to a game and being there by some dumbass fan like that.  If I was there, I would hope he'd get ejected.  I wouldn't want to have to fear for my life because a prison riot might break out.  

And yes, this is the worst it has ever been, but Dennis Rodman has had his fair share of violence, and if I'm not mistaken, so has Artest.  These guys attack refs and cameramen and break $40,000 cameras.  Punishment?  Five games.  Whenever people attending professional sports have to fear for their safety, something needs to change.  That doesn't happen in baseball games because somebody is using steroids or in the NFL because some player is smoking dope.  Yes, these things are big problems and need to be addressed,  but fan-player violence is a lot bigger.

[Tynstar]

With the punishment the Indiana players got the teams season is done.

[den68]

That said, what happened in that game is far, far different from NCAA players accepting cash from boosters or from baseball players using steroids.  

well of course it is. I was merely replying to your statement that the NBA is the trashiest league in sport and should be illegal. What's worse can be debated endlessly but whether it's fan/player violence, criminal activity or cheating NO sport is completely free of it's share of black marks.

[Sauza12]

What happened on Friday was an absolute embarassment for everybody.  The worst thing in my opinion is that the guy that Artest went after wasn't even the guy who threw the beer.  They guy that got hit was just some random jackass who was yelling at the players (like most fans tend to do).  I've alwats hated Ron Artest, so I might be a little biased here, but I hope that he never comes back.

[Sureshot]

NEVER should a player enter the stands and attack a fan.

Not sure if you lot over there saw, but one of the major incidents of a player attacking a fan over here was Eric Cantona in a football (soccer) match in '95:



Why did he do this?  Well, because Cantona is French, the idiot in the stands was hurling racial abuse at him and threw an object in his direction as he was walking off the pitch.

Although he was fined £20k and banned for 9 months for the incident, a lot of people saw it as a marked gesture that footballers were determined to stamp racism out of the game.  The rather unconventional gesture worked in an interesting way, in that everybody remembered the incident and linked why it took place with the racism of the fan.  This was even more apparent with, despite the incident, Cantona going on to be hailed as one of the greatest footballers in skill and personality of all time.

Inicdentally, the current long-standing motto for the official organisation concerned with tackling football racism is also 'let's kick racism out of football', and the English Premiership and other tournaments are some of the least racist in the footballing world today.

[den68]

the incident in Detroit (Auburn Hills actually) had nothing to with racism. The players involved have already been suspended and once the police are done investigating and reviewing the game tapes the fans involved will get their punishment as well. The result for future games will most likely be increased security, cutting off beer sales after the 3rd quarter and maybe putting a canopy over the tunnel to the locker rooms.

The sad thing is that the actions off a few stupid fans and a few stupid players is going to leave a long term black mark on the city of Detroit. Hell, this didn't even happen in Detroit but it's guilt by proximity as usual.

The even sadder thing is that those directly involved will most likely never admit to doing anything wrong. The player union has already made it clear they will appeal the suspensions. I heard a union rep on the radio today say something like "considering the circumstances we feel the length of the suspensions are egregious." what the hell does that mean besides we feel we were justified in our actions. Artest is already crying self defense.

The fans involved will most likely be suing. some justifiably so but those two yahoos who stepped on the court and got pummelled have no business suing.

I'd like to hear someone involved say "I was wrong", but I doubt that will happen.

[Sauza12]

Another thing I heard was that when the Indiana players were on the bus, they were told to keep all of the lights in the bus off because they were afraid the Detroit fans would shoot at the bus.  

THEY WERE IN AUBURN GOD DAMN HILLS!!!!  NOT DETROIT!!!  It' sthe single most vanilla suburb in the world.  Nobody was going to shoot at your goon ass.