Any casual sports fan could not have missed the relentless playing of the videotape of the ugly encounter between the players for the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Piston’s fans in Auburn Hills Michigan over the weekend.
The whole event began with a hard foul on Detroit’s Ben Wallace by Indiana’s Ron Artest. With little time left on the clock and Indiana leading by 15 points Wallace reacted with umbrage and gave Artest a hard push which resulted in both benches joining the fray. Artest quickly retreated behind his fellow teammates and then began posturing as usual. He lay down on the scorer’s table and began engaging in banter with announcers near the bench. The officials were in the processing of controlling this brief skirmish when a fan threw a plastic cup of cold water that doused Artest as he lay on the table. Artest reacted with rage and rushed into the stands and began to pummel a fan that by all accounts had nothing to do with throwing the cup. Stephen Jackson soon joined Artest and the melee was on.
Many apologists in the sport are now pointing the finger at unruly fans that should bear the responsibility for this ugly incident. This is nonsense. One fan out of over ten thousand who were in attendance threw a cup of water, which is hardly a life-threatening act. Artest who is no stranger to rage acted like a maniac blindly attacking a fan who happened to be in the general area.
It is not hard to imagine the reaction of the crowd at seeing a 6’ 8” 260 pound man pummeling a helpless fan. Even more so after seeing the actions of other huge men smashing faces with huge fists it is a miracle the players weren’t given a severe beating which in some people’s view, Artest richly deserved. One chair was thrown and the players were soaked with beer and popcorn but otherwise they escaped unscathed. They were lucky the crowd acted with more restraint than the players had.
To NBA Commissioner Stern’s credit he has acted swiftly and meted out the most severe suspension punishment in his leagues history. Artest is gone for the rest of the year and the other primary culprits; Steven Jackson and Jermaine O’Neil are gone for 30 and 25 games respectively. This of course is not the end as we are sure to see a number of civil suits and hopefully criminal charges applied to both players and fans alike.
For those of us who have been NBA fans for many years this is simply one more indication of a slow and steady decline of the NBA product. Although the price of the product has risen ever higher and the players are bigger the product is terrible. On almost every statistical level the sport has declined. More so the personality of the players and their actions have diminished as well. Long the envy of other sports because of the college education of the players, we are now subjected to immaturity in persona and undeveloped skills in the younger tier of the league. These attributes have been vividly displayed on the international level. Once dominated by our college players our pros have now been humiliated in international competition.
Commissioner Stern has acted swiftly and decisively to this incident however this is only indicative of a greater underlying problem. If not corrected it won’t be long before the fan base is fed up with an over priced and under performing product that in addition you wouldn’t want to expose your children to.
