Pistons/Pacers: The Aftermath

[Steeltrap]

^^
RonRonatourious, please. Just. SYAD.

[IvySpice]

I thought that the punishment was the bare minimum -- if I were commissioner, I'd fire from the NBA anyone who hit a fan. Fire them for life. Period.

Why? Because the NBA, despite its many franchises, is essentially one employer with one set of rules. If you were a doctor, and you beat up a patient, would you expect to get fired by the hospital? If you were a saleslady, and you beat up a shopper, would you expect to get fired by the store? Would you expect to just get suspended and re-hired by the SAME employer the next year? It's a pretty basic rule in all businesses that you can't beat up the customers.

So why in the hell would you expect this particular employer to do something other than fire your violent, untrustworthy, $5 million dollar ass? I'm sick and tired of people treating these grown men like naughty grade schoolers. If you can't follow the most basic rules of having a job, then don't let the door hit you on your way out.

[ladylike]

Originally posted by Nubian
I'm gonna have to join the ranks of those who are embarassed.

Artest is proof that you can take Mookie and Rayray and 'nem out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of Mookie and Rayray and 'nem. I just can't understand how you can be so blessed with talent and financial security, yet be willing to jeopardize it all because someone threw a drink on you. If I made that much money you could puke on me and I wouldn't be phased. Somebody needs to take his overinflated paycheck and give it to some deserving teacher or nurse.

I was with you until you said puke.

Maybe I'm just more in touch with my inner Charles Barkley because while I understand that going into the stands (basketball players) was wrong, I'll be dayumed if some fan is going to come out on the floor and THINK he can throw a punch and not get the absolute *&^^#$#@!#$%%(*!)))*#&%&%&#&*@*($ beat out of him.

[MeezDiscreet]

being that i am the queen of crunk, i understand that sometimes it is necessary to handle things. i may be amongst the minority here, but i probably would have hit that dude too. i'm not saying it's right but it's the truth.

clearly, artest does have some issues. but i personally feel like the punishment is too harsh. that was only, what, game 8? he's suspended for the whooooooooooole season---until june! that's kinda harsh to say that the man was provoked.

and boo on those "fans" who continued pouring beer and stuff on them as they exited the court. i also saw on the news tonight that they identified the [black] man who threw the chair into the crowd.

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by ladylike
Maybe I'm just more in touch with my inner Charles Barkley

Ladylike, you are TRULY off the hook.

LMAO @ inner Charles Barkley.

[Steeltrap]

Hell, I say bah on all parties. Fans need to realize that buying a ticket doesn't give you the right to wild up on people. Boo, fine. But don't go there with throwing isht at players.

I've been listening to Jim Rome quite a bit on this. JR is my all-time favorite sports talk radio host, and has made some good points. He says this is a symbol of disconnect between fans and players.

Jim is white and he said, "if you don't think race had something to do with this, you are naive." He's on to something. A few years ago, I read an article on Black Electorate.com that talked about resentment of athletes such as Allen Iverson and Barry Bonds, because AI and BB didn't seem like they were, err, gracious.

[ladylike]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
Ladylike, you are TRULY off the hook.

LMAO @ inner Charles Barkley.

CT4, after my kindergarten altercation with Big Tanya (see Childhood Fights thread) I aint nevvvah scurrred. LOL

[msn4med1975]

Originally posted by MeezDiscreet
being that i am the queen of crunk, i understand that sometimes it is necessary to handle things. i may be amongst the minority here, but i probably would have hit that dude too. i'm not saying it's right but it's the truth.

clearly, artest does have some issues. but i personally feel like the punishment is too harsh. that was only, what, game 8? he's suspended for the whooooooooooole season---until june! that's kinda harsh to say that the man was provoked.

and boo on those "fans" who continued pouring beer and stuff on them as they exited the court. i also saw on the news tonight that they identified the [black] man who threw the chair into the crowd.

I hear where you are coming from soror but I think this suspension was as extensive as it was not JUST because he bolted into the stands or JUST because he hit a fan. It's more a result of three or four years of BAD BEHAVIOR that culminated here. And yeah he's apologizing now, while plugging what is sure to be a broke bootleg cd, but if they just gave him a 30 or 40 game suspension the league would be blasted.

By pundits saying the NBA is violent and not properly punishing its players, by advertisers yanking their money away, by fans (those that have common sense) taking their money elsewhere. Ron has some serious issues that weren't JUST demonstrated by this incident, the other suspensions, destruction and what not just led up to this and the league are tired of holding his hand. So if he needed to man up and punch a fan, he can man up and sit his butt at home for the rest of the season, unass that 5 million he'll lose in salary and get ready for the litany of civil suits coming his way.

[ladylike]

Originally posted by msn4med1975
I hear where you are coming from soror but I think this suspension was as extensive as it was not JUST because he bolted into the stands or JUST because he hit a fan. It's more a result of three or four years of BAD BEHAVIOR that culminated here.

So he has had a track record of violent altercations with fans and players alike? Could you fill me in about his past?

[msn4med1975]

He's not been in fights with fans before now. He's had a few pretty outrageous blowups before. The most recent and stupid was him destroying a tv camera after they lost a game to the Knicks. I think he was fined, suspended and had to pay for the cost of the tv equipment. If I can find the article, I'll at least post the link to it cause it describes all of his past issues.

ETA: Artest was benched for two games this month for asking Pacers coach Rick Carlisle for time off because of a busy schedule that included promoting a rap album.

Artest was suspended twice by the NBA last season, once for leaving the bench during a fracas at a Pacers-Celtics playoff game; the other for elbowing Portland's Derek Anderson. During the 2002-03 season, Artest was suspended five times by the NBA and once by the Pacers for a total of 12 games.

Artest also once grabbed a television camera and smashed it to the ground after a loss to the Knicks two years ago.

[miss priss]

As a Detroiter, I was really pissed at how some of the sport news broadcasters blamed Detroit (fans). Look, those games take place at the Palace in Auburn Hills NOT Detroit! [since they(folx in the suburbs) don't want to claim us we won't claim them] And the people who can generally afford those seats (which cost around $400-$500)are not people from Detroit. The media always portrays Detroit as a bad place and that is quite the contrary. People here desire that Detroit retain its former glory ....as being a music and industrial powerhouse to name a few. We are in the wake of critical needs such as better schools, jobs, and restructing the political infastructure. Detroit is a wonderful place to live...it's like anywhere else it's what you make of it....
Back to silent observation for now.......

[Steeltrap]

I disagree with the author's take on Jackie Robinson. You can't compare 1947 to 2004.


Trickin' white folks: Why the hood loves Ron Artest

by Kevin Weston, Pacific News Service

Oakland - Ron Artest, the Indiana Pacers forward suspended by the NBA for a year after a fan-and-player melee in Detroit on Friday, gets love in the hood because Black people have a history of rooting for the anti-superhero who butts up against the establishment - tales that go back past slavery to African lore.

Elegua is the trickster in the pantheon of the Yorba religion. Kidnapped Africans brought Yorba to the Western Hemisphere and continued to worship Orishas, or gods, like Elegua. While the religion stayed largely intact in places like Haiti and Cuba, Africans brought to America, where African ways and religions were more harshly punished, had to mask the archetype of the trickster god while adapting his legend to our North American experience. Elegua became High John the Conqueror.

According to Julius Lester, author of the book "Black Folktales," High John is a "Be man - be here when hard times come, and be here when hard times are gone."

High John, Julius writes, is a slave on a Mississippi plantation ruled by "white folks so mean that the rattlesnakes wouldn't bite 'em. 'Fraid they’d poison themselves."

But John, because he is a Be man, "made up his mind to do as much living and as little slaving as he could ...."

"He used to break the hoes, accidentally of course. Set the massa house on fire. Accidentally of course. He always had a hard time getting to the fields on time ..."

Then this African god in Mississippi would flip it. "Ol’ massa was never sure whether John was doing it all on purpose, because some years John would work hard and make a good crop. The next year, though, it seemed that everything he touched got destroyed. But the following year, he'd pick more cotton than anyone thought possible. So the white folks were never sure what side John was on. And you better believe that that was the way John wanted it."

Ron Artest is known as a head case in the NBA. Unpredictable. Dangerous. At the same time, he's the league's most dominant defender, a premiere rebounder and a better-than-average scorer. A week before the Detroit brawl, where he jumped into the stands after being hit with a beer, he was suspended two games for asking for time off to promote an R&B group on his record label.

For years he was known as a cheap-shot artist because of the hard fouls he would deliver to opponents in the paint. Annually, Artest would be among the league leaders in technical fouls. But mysteriously, last year he cleaned up his act, wound up as an All-Star and won Defensive Player of the Year. In large part due to Artest, the Pacers were one of the favorites to win the NBA title this year.

Then Artest burned his massa's field house - the Conseco Field House, where the Pacers play - to the ground. (Or at least their championship prospects this year.)

While he ruined his short-term prospects for making money in the NBA (eventually some NBA squad will pay him to play; he's simply too good to pass up), he's made his hood legend. Everyone and their momma is talking about this, from the one-way streets to Wall Street. His #23 (after Jordan) blue and gold pinstriped jersey will be sold out worldwide by the end of the week.

This has been a bad year for the NBA. Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown also coached the U.S. Olympic Team. That team of NBA stars was hated at home and abroad. At home because it had no white players ("roll players" or "pure shooters"), and because it did have Allen Iverson, a perennial target for scorn in the media (the cornrows, the tats, the rap CD, the "I Don't Give a F---" attitude). As well as a bunch of youngstas, including the two high school-aged kids, Carmelo Anthony and Lebron "100 million dollar man" James. Team USA got the Bronze.

Kobe Bryant beating a charge of raping a white woman - something that just a generation ago would get a ni--a hung so quick, so fast, innocent or guilty - didn't help, either.

It is widely felt in the Black community that these players get hated on because of their fame and fortune, attitude, gender and skin color. It is also widely felt among Blacks that a lot of them bring the negative attention onto themselves. (See Kobe and O.J.)

I've watched as the media and dominant culture has become less and less tolerant of these coddled multi-millionaires. Much of the criticism stems from perceived "lack of effort" or "selfish play" or "too much attitude" and "too street/ghetto."

We've also seen these well paid, attractive and well conditioned negroes self-destruct, blow their money, turn their backs on the community, build hospitals and community centers, take care of legions of their extended families, do gang prevention and anti-violence work, get hooked on dope, sell dope - whatever. They are the best and the worst of who we are, living their public and private lives in front of us. We root and boo. But it's with love.

The Black athletes who get love in mainstream America are molded after Jackie Robinson, the pioneer Brooklyn Dodgers second basemen who broke the color line in baseball over 50 years ago. Jackie got called ni---- so many times he probably thought it was his name. He was loved because he took it.

Who knows what Artest was thinking as he punched his way out of his $6 million yearly salary. He wouldn't take the disrespect, and he's paying for it. The upside is, he can focus on his independent record company and his Destiny's Child-esque group Allure. Their single, "Uh Oh," featuring Dance Hall reggae superstar Elephant Man, is aight. If they happen to go platinum, Artest could make back much of his lost salary.

High John the Conqueror is watching this somewhere, smiling. So am I.