Bill Simmons, unsurprisingly, has one of the most insightful columns on the whole Pistons-Pacers brawl. Lots of good stuff there – read the whole thing. I liked his suggestion that David Stern should punish Pistons fans by suspending beer sales at The Palace for 60 days, as well as his defense of Jermaine O’Neal and his suggestion that Artest would probably end up on the Knicks, stepping into the shoes vacated by the departure of Latrell Sprewell. This amused me:
Adam Carolla had an interesting take on this incident: Imagine being the guy at the game who was first attacked by Artest? You’ve been watching these guys for two hours, you’re pretty buzzed, you’re loving the seats … and then this fight breaks out, and it’s riveting as hell, and then suddenly Artest gets nailed by the cup and he’s coming right at you. As Carolla said, it would be like watching “Captain Hook” in the movies for two hours, then Captain Hook comes right out of the movie screen and attacks you. Would you have blamed that first guy for soiling himself?
But Bill fails to answer the deep philosophical question: how did this entire thing manage to come off without Rasheed Wallace doing something crazy?
UPDATE: Of course, we Knick fans feel that Artest returning to NY would actually be poetic justice, recalling that he was the man the Knicks passed up to draft . . . Frederic “French Toast” Weis.
Ha! Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about Rasheed Wallace. As I flipped through the “slideshow” of photos of the incident, I just kept thinking “is the next one when Rasheed stops being a peacemaker and goes postal?”
I stopped caring about the NBA years ago, but I did go out of my way to read several columns on this whole fiasco (I do live in Michigan, and it was obviously a huge story here) and Sports Guy is the only one who came up with such a great (and deserved) punishment for the fans.
Peer pressure in a sports crowd might have a bit of a different tilt (ie: towards good behavior) if everyone knew any jackass who ets out of line would get everyone’s beer priviledges yanked.
It’s a great idea and it should start right here, right now.
‘Sheed wasn’t exactly playing “peacemaker” – it looked to me like he was egging Ben Wallace on prior to the cup throw.
I think that the fight replays is the most I’ve seen of an NBA game in the last 15 years. (I think I remember watching the Houston play somebody, while some guy in a white ford bronco was driving around in LA.)
Artest got his wish. Now he can go and promote his Rap CD.
What a bunch of thugs. Sheesh
I gave up on the NBA completely when Sprewell choked his coach, and his contract still couldn’t be voided. Decided then and there I’d never again support a league run by thugs, druggies, and muggers.
The Detroit debacle only reinforces my earlier decision.