The Throwdown in Motown

I have huge news about the blog coming in the next week or so. I’ve been working on stuff behind the scene. I will either announce the news on the blog, or a 60 minute special on ESPN.

As I’ve been busy with something new and cool, I thought that I would take a week off to cool down. With the news of the Indiana Pacers are getting their 33.5 million dollars of blood money to stay in town and Ron Artest won an NBA championship, I feel that the NBA has lost its credibility. I’d like to take you back to the moment that it happened. This is a repost from November 2005.

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Let me be the first to say it.  I told you so.

As a loyal Pacer fan, I had to justify what went wrong in the Eastern Conference Championship series against the Pistons last year, and two words came to mind.

Ron Artest.

His hard foul at the end of Game 6, as well as general bad play during the series, cost the Pacers a trip to the NBA finals to avenge their 2000 loss against the Lakers.  Sure, you could point to Jermaine O’Neal’s injury, or Reggie Miller not looking behind him to see if anyone was going to swat away his go ahead shot in Game 2 (the turning point of the series).  But, when push came to shove, Artest didn’t deliver.

The season ended, and the Pacers needed to make some bold moves to challenge the Pistons and the emerging behemoth in Miami.  The Pacers had 3 stellar power forwards, and questions inside.  I had said many times that the Pacers needed to do a sign and trade with the Golden State Warriors…Artest for Power Forward/Center Eric Dampier.  Easy enough, right.  You trade the team cancer, and keep Al Harrington, a young player that was thriving under the system off the bench.  However, Harrington publicly stated that he wanted more playing time, a cardinal sin in any Larry Bird team.  Al was sent packing for Atlanta.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Indiana gets in return Stephen Jackson…the ego maniacal shooting guard who won a ring with San Antonio in 1999, and sounded more like Michael Jackson than he did an NBA superstar.  He and Artest were sure to make fast friends.  It didn’t help Indiana’s inside game, but that’s what the draft was for.  Because I know when I think of guys that can take it to Shaq, I think of David Harrison. 

Jackson was brought in to be the heir apparent to the shooting guard post that would soon be left by an aging Reggie Miller.  It almost seemed that the Pacers’ brass forgot the job that backup Fred Jones did in the playoffs.  Fred Jones alone kept the Pacers alive during the road games in Auburn Hills in June.

So, what happens?  Harrington goes to the Hawks and averages over 20 points, while Jackson and Artest get suspended 102 games between them.

Good move, Indiana.

But I digress.  That was just a backdrop to the events Friday night in Detroit.  Fans were throwing cups of beer, and players were invading the stands as if they were looking for weapons of mass destruction, or as the people in Hollywood would say “Wackiness would ensue”.

Fast forward to tonight.  David Stern steps up and hands down his sentence.  Ron Artest, see you next year.  Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal, enjoy a long unpaid vacation.  Stern talked about the transgression as “unforgivable” and that he was “sending a clear message to the NBA”.

I mentioned earlier, I am a loyal Pacers fan.  I can honestly say that the punishment was fair, just, and swift.  In fact, I think that Stephen Jackson should have been suspended more.  Artest may have done the most damage, but he had a beer thrown at him…that’s provocation.  Jackson went up there just to go up there.

However, I think that there is one other suspension that needs to be levied.  It is my firm belief that the Detroit Pistons fans should be suspended for 10 games.  Let’s face it, this is not the first time Pistons fans have been involved in an incident of projectile beverages.  Boston forward M.L. Carr’s eyes were injured when a fan threw a beer in his face several years ago. 

For the next 10 games at The Palace, the Pistons should play in an empty arena.  In that time, the franchise can spend that time better figuring out the security issues they seem to have.  The Pistons should also be barred from serving alcohol for the rest of the season.

This punishment is common place in Europe for soccer hooligan fans that get just a little too rowdy.  In fact, a Swedish reporter asked Stern if this was possible during the press conference.  Stern dismissed it in that “sure, well look in to it” way that one gets when one makes a request at a radio station.

But I say to you, David Stern, you can send a clear message to the players and coaches that if team security can’t protect you, then the league will.  Sure, as a league, we’ll take the hit financially, but it’s worth it to make the game a family friendly environment.  Nobody can take part in a brawl if no one’s there, now can they?

But until then, I will watch my crippled Pacers slug their way through the next 30 games, and hope they make the playoffs.  And when I watch the highlights of Al Harrington in Atlanta, you know, actually playing.  I will only sit back, munch on my popcorn, and say, “I told you so.”

       

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