Artest suspension (UPDATE: Artest out for the season)

I think Ben Wallace got a light sentence. He pushed Artest viciously.
I would have given him at least 10 games.
I don't think Artest should have been suspended for the rest of the season 30 games would have been enough.
O'Neal and Jackson are lucky that they will get back eventually.
I hope this will give a message to anyone not to go into the stands but I won't be surprised with any future incidents either.

 

I think the coach in brown may have been Jonathan Bender...

And JO was in the tunnel when the chair was thrown at him, I thought...

The suspensions, though excessive, are just what the league needed to do. Good job, Stern.

Now, retaliate to protect the players from fans.

 

I don't think Vernon Maxwell ever touched anyone when he went into the crowd, but I could be wrong. I thought it got broken up before anything happened. If that's true, what Artest did was much worse, and a bigger suspension is a no-brainer.

Keep in mind that Sprewell got suspended for the rest of the year for choking his COACH. Assaulting a fan(s) has GOT to be considered worse. I would think.

To those who keep talking about 'The Detroit Fans' - it was ONE FAN! One fan did this, not all of Detroit.

I've done a 180 on this since it happened. I'm pretty ashamed actually that I was defending the players at first. No excuse.

 

Freak, I'm pretty sure Max hit the guy at least once, if I recall correctly.

 

Good suspensions, fair and stiff.

Time to teach these overpriced babies a lesson.

DD

 

look, i really don't wanna get in an argument with you over this b/c it's pointless at this point. all i'm saying is j o'neal sees two guys go after artest. he goes to get them. one of them happens to get knocked down for a while and is getting back up. he gets jacked up. at that point he may not have been going to do anything further but he's still on the court in the middle of a brawl and he's getting up and o'neal is pissed at this point. all i'm saying is in his mind he wanted a piece of a guy who wanted a piece of artest who was still on the court. in hindsight, the guy didn't need it, but it had a reason at that point in time to o'neal. the fan deserved whatever he got as far as i'm concerned for ever being on the court going after artest.

apparently we just disagree on this point.

 

The Detroit owners are terrible. No remorse. Really, the league should have rules for fan conduct. Hooligans should get an immediate exit, and possible ban. Detroit owners have taken the stand that they support Hooliganism. If an owner fails to honor their franchise with the league they should get the franchise yanked.

Fans should never be allowed to throw things. Where was the Detroit security? That fan should have gotten an immediate beat down and the bum's rush.

We obviously need hockey boards and get those morons with cameras out from under the goals. All we need is a 100 million player throwing his back when he lands on a camera.

I still think Artest is a great player. This is a temporary setback. I'd love that guy in Rocket red. I'm hardley surprised at you moralists who have rang your leaden bells. The time to strike is now. Be a realist, seize the moment for real power. Even the army needs it's special ops. Your hand-wringing makes you soft.

 

then that one fan sure does move fast and is capable of changing clothes and appearance extremely quick.

one fan threw a beer. then another threw something else on them before jackson hit him. then another sucker punched jones. then two more went after artest. then another threw a freakin' chair. then a bunch threw everything they could find on the guys as they went out in the tunnel. and these were just the people in the vicinity of the fight. it wasn't like all 20,000 got a chance to act like idiots (thank God).

 

apparently so

the fact remains that security was doing its job in subduing the fan and the fan was not a threat, and all O'Neal did was retaliate, and was not acting in self defense, nor acting in defense of Artest

and thats why O'Neal got a 30 game suspension .....period

 

And I'm hardly suprised at you fans who have no standards for the players who play for their teams as long as that player is good

btw ..trading for a player who has been suspended for the rest of the year would be the dumbest GM move of all time

 

Any fool that goes on the court deserves to get popped in the mouth. I don't think what Oneal did was as bad as what Stephen Jackson did with whacking the guy in the black shirt. Oneal might have done way more damage, but it was legit self-defense. These idiots who come onto the court might be going Monica Seles on someone. Oneal will have a case to defend himself in the court of law if he gets sued or when the player's union appeals.

 

why do people keep saying jackson ran into the fans just throwing "haymakers" wildly? he threw all of one punch and it was on the guy who pulled possibly the most punk act of all by throwing his drink on the initial fight with artest and others. jackson caught him doing it and nailed him and that guy was no longer in the fight. after that, did jackson throw another punch? he definitely didn't throw one previous to that and it doesn't seem like he ever threw another one.

if people are complaining about the o'neal punch, then this one was definitely more justifiable. he found a guy trying to exacerbate the action. he threw one punch then got restrained and it was over. definitely too much for jackson.

 

The suspensions are all what they should be except Wallaces. Wallace should have a long suspension 20 games or more. The foul that Artest gave him is not half as hard as some of the fouls he gives out during the season and wasnt even as hard as the push that he gave Artest on a previous posession that slammed Artest against the goal post. Wallace is a goon thug. His act is old. He puts out plenty of rough stuff. And he followed up a mediocre foul with an extreme overreaction. He should be out a minimum of 20 games. 5 games is a joke. The rest of the players got what they had coming. I hope all of their suspensions stand and the Players association bites the big one fighting to have them reduced. I just do not understand why Stern only gave Wallace a few games.

 

Yup. That's exactly when Jackson got involved. But I think he went nuts after that. At least it seemed that way.

Maybe it was just the zeal he showed when he got into it. He was crazed.

I was wondering that myself. But that dope in the white had wasn't anywhere near as 'innocent' as he may have seemed. He may have even been the guy who threw it.

He even gives Artest a little 'momentum' shove in the direction of 'deer-in-headlights' guy!! And I think he was the guy who started punching Fred Jones in the back of the head while Jones was trying to break things up.

That d**k is one of the fans I hope sees some sort of punishment for this.


...though somehow I doubt anything's going to happen to any of those morons....

 

Any fan who threw punches, bottles, beer, chair, or any other object, and got out the floor should be barred from attending any games for at least a year, and they should spend a couple months in jail. The players should be allowed to sue if they are sued and both parties should have to pay up if they lose their case.

 

Just an assumption, but Jackson's suspension was probably due to him following Artest into the stands to confront the fans.

 

Do you have a cliche to explain why hockey and baseball players have done the same thing?

 

wow I guess im kind of suprised everyone jumped on the apologists bandwagon.. I was actually sicked by the way ESPN analysts covered the incident.

someone throws a drink on you, contact security and they will get thrown out and maybe go to jail.

but as a player you run into the stands you get whatever happens to you.. luckily the players came out unscathed.

why do you guys side with these punk players?!?

anyone who runs into the stands has just put themselves, teammates, fans, security in serious danger.

Security is keeping angry fans away from the court but when a player jumps into the fray they throw everything out the window.

Artest is seriously lucky he didnt get mobbed and hurt real bad one bad slip or fall within the seats and getting mobbed on he would be in a world of hurt.

What the fans did was disgusting too.. but if you were sitting in those seats and you saw Artest charging into the stands wailing on a fan what would you do? seriously im curious.

J

 

agree 100% rooms4rentsf, I thought ESPN sided too much with the players. Yes, both sides were at fault, but the fans became a mob, and the players should have known better than to incite them even more. I think about it this way, if a player rushes the court, he will and should get knocked down by security, that is a line fans don't cross, and security is prepared to handle that.

however, if a player crosses into the fans, thats something else, security is not prepared for that, and that will only incite the fans to cross the boundary in return. detroit is lucky that more fans didn't get involved in rushing the court, because with the anger and bloodlust, it could have easily happened.

call me oldfashioned, but i expect professionals to act like it and to know when not to make things worse. I do think the punishments are somewhat unbalanced and to a degree unfair, but the league is making a statement, and they are undoubtedly glad that it was these few guys and not certain others.

I am however impressed at how rasheed kept his cool. Espn tried to keep their camera on him expecting him to do something, but he was calm. and darko too, you know he has a lot of repressed anger.