jack barse

I have been watching the Pacers-Pistons brawl fallout with morbid fascination, and frankly have been willing to condemn Artest and the rest of the players involved as punks. The on-court action that eventually precipitated the mini-riot was overblown and contrived; Artest’s recline on the scorer’s table was just an inappropriate pose; and the players who waded into the stands after Artest clearly either lost perspective that they were participating in a sporting event or never understood the way the real world works. My money’s on the latter.

I figure that Ben Wallace had been hearing crap from Artest all night. What with the Pacers up big over the defending NBA champs, and Artest’s apparently personality, it’s easy to imagine that Wallace was more than a little edgy when he made that power move to the basket. Artest’s hack was strong, yes, but it certainly wasn’t a “hard foul”; Wallace didn’t even lose his balance. His reaction, of shoving Artest with both hands, was as much about getting back in Artest’s face as it was about the hack itself. Watch the video yourself, and watch it carefully. See? After the foul Wallace stands up and turns around, and there’s Artest, standing there, leaning forward, as if he’s saying to Wallace, “What are you going to do about my hack?” Well, he might not have used those exact words. So Wallace shoved him and Artest, a talented professional athlete who was expecting some sort of confrontation, pinwheeled his arms and took four or five quick steps backwards, as if he nearly fell. It was a complete act by Artest, and a poor one at that, save for its having succeeded in getting his Pacer teammates to mob up in the faces of the Pistons.

The pushing, shoving and jawing that followed was not entirely atypical in professional sports. It was absurd, unprofessional and juvenile but unfortunately not uncommon. It involved mostly the players who were in the game at that point and some assistant coaches (and one Detroit player) who came from the benches apparently trying to cool things down. Once things started to escalate Artest, perhaps trying to make sure that there would be evidence that he didn’t fight, climbed up onto the scorer’s table and lay down. Could he have chosen a more inappropriate response? He knew that if he fought he’d be suspended, yet he could not just walk away because that would have been perceived as cowardly by him teammates, who were rallying to his cause. Of course, the reclining pose on the table just shows how much an act the whole thing was; if he’d been truly angry at Wallace he would have been in the middle of the shoving and jawing match.

Then somebody threw a blue cup, apparently with ice but no liquid inside, which hit Artest on the shoulder. That’s when Artest lost it and climbed into the seats. My guess is that he figured he could go into the stands and beat the crap out of any fan because he’s a big, strong man and fans are generally not the fittest human beings on earth, especially at the end of a basketball game when the home team is getting stomped. He revealed himself to be nothing more than an arrogant bully.

But consider the fan who threw the cup. It is interesting that he aimed at Artest, since the pushing and shoving was going on several feet away from where Artest was posing on the table. Clearly the idiot who lobbed the cup wanted to hit Artest, not just hit anybody who was pushing and shoving. I had thought that the guy was likely at least half in the bag and upset about the outcome of the game and the foul Artest laid on Wallace.

As it turns out this guy, who grabbed Artest from behind and hit him in the head at least twice once Artest came into the stands, is a complete jerk. Vis:

The man who threw the cup that hit Artest was identified by Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca on Monday as John Green, a 39-year-old contractor from the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield Township.

Green is shown clearly on videotape lobbing a cup of ice from the stands, according to authorities. The 6-3, 235-pound Green also grabbed the 6-7, 246-pound Artest from behind once the Pacers forward reached the stands and hit him from behind, Gorcyca said.

Green is on probation for driving while intoxicated. His record includes a 1988 assault with intent to do great bodily harm and an attempt to escape from custody that same year, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections’ online database. In 1986 he was convicted for carrying a concealed weapon and for check fraud.

And he had the nerve to appear on Fox News last night, proclaiming how wronged he felt by Artest’s having waded into the fans. Asshole.

This is exactly the type of person that the NBA doesn’t need as fans. It’s bad enough that too many of the players have adopted the dress and mannerisms of gang members, but that apparently has also riled up those louts who fancy themselves tough guys, too, and Friday’s episode was the boil-over point. That’s the real problem that the NBA has to deal with. Individual players can be disciplined as needed, but no one in their right mind will want to go to an arena to sit surrounded by thugs, punks and gangstas both on and off the court.