He was pounding his chest and then all of a sudden it turns to elbow swinging? Yeah, definitely not a valid argument there.
Watch the video again. Artest begins to celebrate with his right arm, but then realizes Harden is there, breaks his celebrations, rears back his elbow, and then swings it with full force into Harden. You celebrate by screaming. You celebrate by jumping into your teammates. You don't celebrate by injuring a player on the opposite team.
Kendrick Perkins: "Metta World Peace is a good dude so I know he wouldn't try to hurt nobody." https://twitter.com/ArashMarkazi/status/194210420943355904
LOL, Durvasa. Clearly all the time you spend in front of spreadsheets and computers has genetically modified you to forget about the feeling of primitive urges. Even going more than a couple months without dancing and eating a diet heavy in refined foods can do this. Swinging of the elbows is a traditional human celebration stemming from the stone age. It's just the new age man has been conditioned by the media to think there are certain civilized ways of celebrating... which is an absolute joke. Think back to the last time you felt a huge rush of ecstasy as a child and the uncontrollable body high that followed. THis was before you gave a **** about what your peers thought or gamer buddies did. It was just you, the jungle, and a zulu warrior dance. It's a sad sign of our times that the modern man finds raw expressions of passion (non sexual) to be "uncivilized" or "disgraceful" or "mentally unstable" because of his own rigidity and inability to express his own emotions without being enveloped in insecurities. Ya dig homie?
Just like when he wouldn't try to hurt the fans and players during the Palace Brawl? Just like he didn't want to hurt JJ Barea by ramming his forearm and elbow into his face? Just like he didn't want to tear Kobe a new ******* when Kobe elbowed him in the throat? Right.
People will still demonize the dude although first hand accounts of Ron have always been positive...and this coming from a dude who has never played from him. I think he just got caught up in his own celebration, then realized Harden was interrupting his gorilla chest pound thing and thought to himself "Dude, move the $%#& Outta my way!" and that is what happened. It still shouldn't have happened but I don't think Ron meant it to happen. I think there is a difference between what he and Bynum did...Bynum meant for what he did to happen and I don't think Artest did although Harden suffered a more serious injury than Barea.
LOL, Scorpio 1. It's called walking into the line of fire. You step on glass, you gon get hurt. You walk into a volcano, you gon get burnt. That's what the streets taught me, and it's something that can be applied to sports because of their unpredictable nature. It's unfortunate Harden got hurt, but it's not because Artest adjusted his actions to knock Harden down.
Dude that was like 8 years ago and he's totally changed his attitude around since then That was Bynum, wasn't it? Its Kobe so who cares? Jk. I believe that in that instance he just got in his face to talk mess. He wasn't retaliating physically.
Doesn't change that Ron Artest has an impulsive anger control problem. Nope. I don't care, but I needed a third example.
Point is: if he wants to hurt you, he'll let you know it. He's not a guy to give cheap shots and then not admit it. He's not a cheap shot artist. I'm not in Artest's brain, but clearly he NEVER looked at Harden one single time after the dunk AND on the way back. It was an unfortunate incident, and Ron will miss games, and rightfully so. Intentional or not, that was too vicious of a hit. Ron's too strong man. Angry about what? The guy just dunked on a player; he was CELEBRATING. That's like one in a lifetime experience for Ron nowadays (dunking).
Much more than anyone in this thread. THe opinion of someone who's been around him, played with him, felt his energy... versus a fat guy who gets all his info from secondhand sources?
I dk. I feel like if the hit was unintentional then Ron would had came back and checked to see if he was okay or not. I am sure he felt that his elbow hit his head...
He doesn't need to look at Harden. Artest has a long history of throwing elbows and behaving like nothing was meant by it. I don't know what his intentions were or what he was thinking. He probably wasn't thinking. He was in the midst of a "celebration", and in that state of mind I'm thinking he has even less control over his actions than normal. It was just adrenaline doing the work.
Artest would do something, but not realize that what he did was wrong... If you read about the brawl at the palace, even Stephen Jackson (the guy who went into the stands and threw vicious haymakers) said there's something not right about Artest... Artest doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, or at the very least, he can't gauge the severity of his actions. Anyone that is defending Artest and the elbow should seriously put themselves in his place, the elbow did not even rotate naturally, I'm not trying to be an armchair anatomist, but you have you have perspective here. If Artest can't be aware of people around him, send his ass to the D-League until he is able to locate players around him, or send him to be rehabilitated about his condition. Do you guys remember the Vince Carter ref incident... Vince was running down the court sideways, and he accidentally ran into a ref, the initial contact is pure accident, but his reaction was unnecessary. He lifted the ref and dropped him, forcing him to land on his arm and causing injury. A person, especially, someone who will make Artest the mercy of his decision should be able to tell if this was accidental or not. I vote he threw that elbow with the intent to harm. If you're celebrating, normally you would pop your chest out, the elbow should swing lower, so as to angle the chest out and lowering the shoulders. Just saying
Exactly. I think that play got him so pumped up that even after he swung the elbow, he still pumped his chests like a madman. Ultimately, it was a vicious but unintentional hit.