Not a good way to represent. I've never liked Melo, even though I'm somewhat forced to. Completely different than Etan Thomas.
I want to keep liking Melo but he's making it very hard. If there is better footage clearly showing he deliberately grabbed Sasha by the neck, he should be suspended a game.
Melo obviously hasn't learned a great deal from the NY brawl. Though Sasha embelished it a little (a lot?), still a stupid, low thing to do. WTF is wrong with Melo?!? At least when Francis forearms Stoudamire in the throat it's because he's going at his boy Yao. But there's no conceivable reason for what Melo did, other than you team is getting whopped by the Lakers scrubs, so why not hurt them physically instead of the scoreboard?
I hope hecklers in every nba city yell hey carmelo, stop snitchin every time he complains to the ref about a no call.
If he did this to Kobe, I would probably have had to respect his action. But, to a scrub like Sasha, that is stupid and despicable.
Sasha's hair is georgous! I can imagine the way it flows in a nice summer wind on the beaches of Santa Monica. Sasha...my hero! j/k. Somebody needed to choke-grab that punk!
Vujacic obviously faked that like crazy, considering he was smiling and high-fiving his teammates when 10 seconds earlier, he was acting like he couldn't breathe. That being said, there really isn't any reason why Melo's hands should be on Vujacic's neck in the first place, so he pretty much did it to himself. On a plus note, I bet Vujacic ain't gonna snitch ever again. Otherwise, Melo might just have to choke a b**ch.
I don't think the intention was there, at all. It looked worse than it was, and Vujacic definitely embellished. It didn't even look like Carmelo was paying attention to where his hand was. He did push off slightly when he realized what he was doing, which was probably why it looked so glaringly terrible. I would've made the call to kick him out too. But I don't think the league should take more action against him or anything.
I lost all respect for Melo as a person since that ordeal. That said, the tiny youtube video w/ low quality picture and wide shot makes it tough to see how intentional this was. I'll reserve judgment.
You knew I'd have to chime in. Honestly, I want to see better footage before I decide anything. IMO (and remember, I'm a Nugs fan so I am biased), at first glance it appeared intentional. However, on the second shot I saw, it appeared Melo was watching the ball upcourt and put his hand out to place it on Vujacic's chest when Vujacic started to move towards him. Still not looking, Melo caught him on the throat, assumed it was his arm, and pushed back. Vujacic then pulled a soccer player move and embellished. Kick Melo out, no suspension though. Possible fine. Disclaimer -- youtube is blocked at my work, so I can't see the specific video linked here. Just going off of the videos I saw as the game went on last night.
The footage to me is inconclusive. He appears Carmelo had his arm out when he felt him go past him kind of like to stop his cut but may have accidentally got his hand in the wrong area. Didn't even look like carmelo was looking in that direction when he stuck his arm out but it's so hard to tell. Where is the HD footage?
