The guy probably payed over a thousand dollars for his ticket, and as a fan, he can say whatever he wants. Those players are professionals, and they have the ability to tune things out. Crossing the line for the fan would be going onto the court and touching malone. Malone is the one who crossed the line, and he should be punished.
Does the league and David Stern have THAT much power that they can sway both internet, and TV reports to not cover the incident? I hopefully will all be worth it. Watching Karla get so close again only to lose it during his purchased last pathetic effort, is going to be almost as sweet as if we had beaten them in the first place. Go Detroit!!!
The man can pay a billion dollars for a ticket and it wouldn't matter to me, he has no right to verbally assualt another man. Forget laws, and league rules, and professionalism, and policy, and all that baloney, there's right and there's wrong, and standing a few feet away from a man and verbally assualting him, is wrong, and its a challenge to Malone and Malone proved his worthiness as a man in my opinion. This man wasn't sitting a few rows up, this man was on the court a few feet away from Malone. If being a professional means ignoring a loud mouth coward who is a few feet away from you and who is challenging your manhood, then being a professional means not being a human but being a little mouse. On the court Malone pisses me off, but if that man who was a few feet away from him was challenging his integrity as a human being, then he had to do what he had to do. Stack, I understand you, if he is not at least fined for coming into contact with that fan, there is a double standard there.
You don't think other players get verbally abused in every game of the season in every arena they go to? Do you think Kobe doesn't get called a rapist? He does, but he never went over and poked anyone like a big man. You have to let it slide off your back and just play the game. Secondly, the NBA is entertainment, and it's because of the fans that guys like Malone can make 15 million dollars to play a game. Man, I've never heard someone get so upset about a guy being "verbally assaulted". It's a part of sports, and the incident proved to me that malone is just a bigger jackass than i suspected.
The circumstances were different with Malone. This was not some fans in the stands yelling this and that at Malone during the game. This was pre-game. These two guys were standing up and stepping over the baseline on the court, almost challenging the guy to his face. Malone did the right thing. Whether you are in the nose bleed seats or in the front row you are a coward if you yell to a player what you would not tell to his face if it was just you and him in an alley. But if you are on the floor and before the game has started and are standing up and stepping on the court and saying personally abusive things to another man, almost to his face, you better be ready to defend yourself. Props to Malone for punking that lowlife fan.
Pro atheletes are entertainment. Nothing more nothing less. They get payed very well for what they do and therefore when doing their job, the job itself holds them to a different standard. If a fan with an expensive expensive tickets gain enjoyment out of cussing Karl Malone, he has to the take it. It's his job.
Hahahah. Beautiful, a coward given the same cowardly crap from another coward. Not so nice when you're on the other end, eh Malone? Love the ironic phrasing Texas Stroke. Props for a low life punk punking a lowlife punk. lol, Indeed.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2004/news/story?id=1820204 AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- A fan's allegation that Lakers' forward Karl Malone poked him in the face before Game 3 of the NBA Final was being investigated by police Friday. Asked whether the confrontation occurred, Auburn Hills police Lt. James Manning said, "It's on tape on national TV." The man was at the edge of the court during Los Angeles' layup drill before Thursday night's game, won by the Detroit Pistons 88-68. "To me, he was really out of line," Malone said Friday. "Just because you buy a ticket doesn't mean you should be able to get on the court and degrade somebody." Malone, a 19-year NBA veteran and the league's second-leading career scorer, said the fan had obviously been drinking and spit in his face while heckling him. Malone jabbed his right index finger toward the man. As to whether he made contact, Malone said, "Maybe I did, but he was in my playing field." "He was on the court. Where was the security in the arena?" he said. The unidentified man complained to the Auburn Hills police. "At this time, the investigation is going on and we are not releasing any information about the case," Manning said. Manning declined to comment further and said police would release more information Monday. Manning said police have talked to the fan and that "he is a complainant in the case." "Maybe he wanted to beat me to the draw. Who knows?" Malone said. "I'm not going to let a guy spit on me, I'm not going to take that. I've never had that happen before." Malone also said fans have harassed the Lakers at their hotel in nearby Birmingham. "They did it all night long until the cops came," Malone said. -- droxford
The only reason Malone was close enough to get spit on (if he really did) was because he confronted the fan by approaching the sideline. In the footage i saw, it doesnt really look like the fan spit, but maybe he did it earlier. Regardless, it could have been avoided if Malone just took the high road.
with that said, this becomes a discussion about what you are. With that kind of thinking I have no doubts.
just saw the replay of the incident on PtI and I gotta say, Malone was waaaay out of line. Malone covers about 15 ft to come over and poke the guy in the face. Guy should be fined and suspended unless they have rules stating only incidents during the game matter. I think the main reason nothing will be done about this is because everyone knows this series is over for malone and they feel sorry for him. Jesus, he even feels sorry for himself - why else would he need to go after some pasty doughboy who is literally half his size? aaah, maybe that poster is right. maybe there are good reasons i should start beating the crap out of those 5th graders down the street that keep talkin sh*t....
what? wait a minute. Where do you stand here. You believe Malone is at fault for having a fan spit on him because he walked over to the fan who was stepping on the court to insult him? Come on now, is this about right or wrong, or is this about some past personal hatred we have for Malone, which as Houston fans, we all have? Because if thats whats going on here, I may see this as you are seeing it, and think of reasons to put Malone at fault and make excuses for this fan, like you are doing. You see, at the beginning I put all my hatred for Malone aside and looked at this situation as man vs. man. I did not see this as high paying fan vs. infamous and hated basketball player. I saw man vs man. and in this particular situation one man was the lowlife and one man did the right and natural thing. Now the instigator is the one who is the fan who is stepping over the baseline and who is yelling insults at the other man. That much is clear on tape. The instigator is already at disadvantage in this battle of right and wrong, and in this case not only was this man..or fan..the instigator he has been accused of spitting on the player after he had antagonized the player to the point that player felt he had to walk over to him. The way I see it is this fan/man has three strikes and he's out. One strike for stepping on the court. Two strike for insulting a man 3 times his size. And 3 strikes for spitting on a man 3 times his size. And the security people saw it that way as well, because he was outta there.
Not totally disagree with what you said earlier. But why is the "3 times his size" part relevant? I thought if you did things to somebody smaller than you, you'd be considered a coward. How does having a smaller size cast negative light on this guy? BTW, didn't Jack Nicholson step on the court arguing with the ref? They didn't throw him out, did they?
It's relevant because either 1) this man thinks he can get away with insulting a man 3 times his size, because he feels as wizkid does, that pro athletes are not equal to man and he can get away with it, which makes him a coward 2) Or this man is a fella with common sense who knows beforehand that when he insults a man three times his size, he will create a stir with this fella, which means this man hostility was pre-meditated and he was looking to cause trouble. Now the second reason might not make him a coward but it makes him a trouble-maker...wait trouble makers are cowards...so yeah he's still a coward...but it doesnt matter, from his angle, he has an unjust fight on his hands, which nature feels and that puts him at a disadvantage. The instigator is always at a disadvantage in a tussle he provoked - Art of War part 2 by Texas Stoke. Coming to bookstores near you. ; )
malone could be lying, it didnt look like the guy spit on him. Looked like they were just talking mess. why dont they just ask that guy who sepearted them.
But, really, Texas Stroke. Who really cares who was in the right or wrong, when it involes someone like Malone, in the subject of cowardly acts? Isn't it hypocritical? Unimportant? Stupid?
The only problem is he didn't step on the court, he had courtside seats, and he was not "on the court" Players get insulted all the time, during shootaround,on the street, during games, just because they're big men doesn't give them a right to push people around. We don't even know if he spit on him, if anything the evidence says he didn't, Malone was pretty far away from him until Malone confronted him, if the dude could spit that far accurately enough to hit Malone, kudos to him.
Man, since when did we have Malone fans on this bbs anyway? I thought that chick was the last of them. That being said, Malone has a history of violent interactions with people. The fan probably called him on his weak play in the finals, and I bet it's a sensitive subject with Malone since he knows that this is his last chance to win a championship and it's slipping away. It's frightening to me, but to quote Chris Rock, "I'm not saying he should have done it, but I understand." Still, there's really not any justification to defend Malone. How does a 20 year vet get himself in that situation? Perhaps roid rage? My take is that Malone is, and always has been, a dumb punk.
It's pretty simple where I stand. Malone is a professional, and these professionals take verbal abuse all the time. They should not get involved with tussles with fans, regardless of whose manhood has been insulted. Malone was in the layup line, left the layup line to poke a fan in the face, and then claims that he was spit on. If he hadn't gone over there, there was no way to get spit on. So yes, it is Malone's responsibility to avoid this situation, he did not, and he should be punished. God, I wonder what the outcry would be if Ron Artest had done this, instead of the situation being swept under the carpet.
