| A Palace in Ruins
By Patryk Fournier November 25th, 2004 |
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In the end, Ron Artest finally got his much publicized request for time off to delve into his side career as a music producer/promoter/rapper. His request wasn't granted by the Pacers whom he asked earlier this month for a 4-6 week break. Instead he got his sabbatical delivered from the NBA's head honcho, commissioner David Stern when he suspended Artest 73 games, the remainder of the regular season. While Artest's opportunities for corporate sponsorships are now officially over and his public image is now that of nothing but a thug, this incident didn't exactly hurt his image in the rap/hip-hop music industry. By inheriting a Suge Knight persona Artest can now fit seamlessly into an industry where having a checkered past and tarnished image is like needing an MBA to sit on the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company. After watching Artest's interview on the Today show where he decked himself out in clothes from his record label and unapologetically and shamelessly promoted his group's new CD countless times it appears the NBA's suspension has simply reunited Artest's body with his mind that had already wandered off the court towards his fledgling music career, long before the brawl. The NBA's suspension of Artest, Jermaine O'Neal, and Stephen Jackson was certainly stern (pardon the pun) but it was a fair judgment if the league wanted to send a message and make an example out of this debacle to prevent future incidents like this from occurring. So I side with the NBA's suspension from that perspective but by skewing the suspensions so much towards the Pacers side (134 games lost compared to 9 games for the Pistons) it appears to place blame squarely on the Pacers side and ignores the actions of the fans as instigators in all of this.
The Pistons organization leaves this situation virtually unscathed when in fact the NBA should have sought out the same discipline that professional soccer hands out to organizations that can not control the conduct of their fans. Just this year there was a high profile example of fans getting out of control with the home team facing direct penalty for their supporters' actions. Dynamo Kiev was leading 1-0 at halftime against host AS Roma in a September UEFA Champions League game when Roma supporters started throwing projectiles onto the field. One object struck referee Anders Frisk busting him open like a Ric Flair chair shot. The game was called immediately. UEFA deliberated over the incident and declared Dynamo Kiev 3-0 victors (a huge advantage for Kiev considering aggregate goals often decide who moves onto the next round) and disciplined the AS Roma organization by ruling their next two home Champions League games against Bayer Leverakusen and Real Madrid, will be played to empty stadiums. Considering Roma's Olympic stadium can hold up to 82,397 people and Real Madrid and Bayer Leverakusen would have made for major draws UEFA's penalty is a major blow financially for an organization that could have used the extra gate receipts. UEFA's ruling put complete onus on the organization to provide a safe environment for a sporting event to be hosted and if that cannot be done major repercussions will be taken. It would have been nice to see the NBA take this route and discipline the Pistons organization and their lax in-game security efforts by making them play 2-3 games to an empty arena. Trust me, if teams knew that losing gate receipts for a few games was an option for league discipline you would see a lot more security personnel and stricter sales of alcohol at games. After seeing countless replays of the incident at the Palace of Auburn Hills, the shock value has now worn off and I feel myself getting desensitized to the violence but I still remember my initial reaction. I had gotten home late Friday after a night of poker and caught the 2:00am showing of SportsCentre and I sat there with my jaw on the floor like I had just heard that Dakota Fanning was cast as "Lupita", the kidnapped Mexican girl in "Man on Fire" or that Angelina Jolie was cast as Colin Farrell's mother in "Alexander". It was one of those rare moments that I would have started a full conversation with a complete stranger just because I needed to talk it out. I was ready to give my buddies a call and ask them if I was actually seeing this right, before better judgment got a hold of me and I remembered the Curb Your Enthusiasm ten o'clock rule for making phone calls.
The backlash the NBA has received after the Pacers-Pistons brawl is reminiscent to what the NHL received after Todd Bertuzzi's punching of Steve Moore last March. Days after the brawl I talked to tons of people who all said roughly the same thing: "I normally don't watch the NBA but I definitely saw that incident at least half a dozen times." The most damaging thing for the NBA is that this one incident helped paint a very clear image of what the league is about for non-basketball fans and followers which also happened to hockey when it was typecast as nothing more than a barbaric, savage game full of goons. You never know when you'll make a real first impression on people and unfortunately for the NBA this was the incident they were judged upon.
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