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Originally Posted by satisfried
the Pacers will still make the playoffs, and no matter where they're seeded, they will be dangerous.
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Yeah... because they will probably bring their guns with them next time!
And I agree that Artest should be banned for life and probably O'Neil too. They have absolutely no excuse for their behavior. If they are going to act like petty thugs, then they should be treated like one. Why were there no arrests being made? One fan left the game in an ambulance for chistsake! If anyone else in the world would have caused bodily harm like that to another person they would have been arrested.
And I'm sorry, but I do not think that getting a beer thrown in your fact is any reason to go beat the shit out of someone. You can just dump all your arguments about "what would you do", and "it's only human nature to defend..." Blah, blah, blah... We are not animals that are controlled by instinct. We have an intellect (or at least some of us do) that can overrule our base reactions.
Artest was the whole reason this thing happened. If he hadn't committed that bullshit foul, then there wouldn't have been a shove, and there wouldn't have been a bench clearer and there wouldn't have been any reason for the fan to throw the beer in the first place. It can all be traced back to Artest acting like a total dick. PERIOD. And it's not like he hasn't done it before. He has been suspended many times in the last two years for what could be considered "unsportsmanlike like conduct"... oh, but I forgot... sportsman like conduct doesn't have any place in sports anymore.
Does anyone out there remember when basketball was a game of skill and finesse? When ANY contact between players was a foul. When traveling was actually called? The game used to have integrity. Now it's just a bunch of thugs out there paying street ball. Just my opinion, but one I feel is shared by many people.
But in the end, I do think the NBA should take some responsibility for it. Only because they let this kind of shit takes place. As many people above have pointed out, Rodman, Shak, etc. have done almost as bad with little or no punishment. Are we then surprised when we finally have something like this occurring? No. We are not. It is simply another day in professional sports.
And frankly, I think it quite offensive that anyone would think that this sort of behavior is "cool", or that this event was "awesome". I think it is one of the worse events in American professional sports, and I hope the league and players take a hard look at what they have become.