BasketBrawl

Hmmm. What can I say about it that hasn't been said already?

By it, of course, I mean Friday Night Fights in Detroit, the fun event held by the Pacers and Pistons at the end of their NBA Game. Next time, though, we really think the Pistons need to promote the event, so fans don't leave the arena early and miss the real action.

Jokes aside, this story keeps getting more unbelievable by the minute. This morning on ESPN (which has shown the fight so often that it now has its own timeslot, just after Pardon the Interruption), we watched Sportscenter spot-shadowing the guy who threw the cup that started the mess. It turns out Artest did indeed punch the wrong guy -- the guy who threw the cup basically moves out of the way and almost escorts Artest right to the innocent guy he pummelled. Better yet, the cup-tosser was immediately identified by the lead prosecutor in the case, since it's his former neighbor. So far this guy has lost his season tickets and held a press conference in front of his home, where he didn't apologize to anyone for getting things started.

As for my feelings... I think Artest's suspension is a tad harsh, but it's not a terrible injustice. Jackson deserves more, O'Neal less (any fan who runs on the court deserves anything that happens) and Wallace more. I could care less about the NBA before the playoffs start (and sometimes after that) and this brawl changes nothing, except it may make me more likely to watch the next Pacers-Pistons game. As for Artest's reaction to the beer cup... Frenchy, I hope you're reading this. Jonah Goldberg posted this at the Corner, from an e-mail. It wasn't me who wrote this, but the Harvard-Philly connection is suspicious...

I think it a simple rule of life: Throw a cup of beer in someone’s face you get your a** kicked. I think this a conservative position; it has been a rule for thousands of years. This rule has been passed down from our Mongol, Viking, even the French forefathers. I have personally observed this rule in effect in the civilized and conservative communities of South Philadelphia and the Harvard campus. Why should we expect 20 year olds to ignore thousands of years of social conditioning simply because they make $6 million a year?

Artest showed great initiative and perseverance in kicking that guy’s ass, a model of individual responsibility in a self regulating society. In fact, absent the subsequent activities of lawyers, I am certain that the a**-kickee will think twice about throwing further cups of beer. To paraphrase Robert A. Heinlein ‘an a** kicking society is a polite society’.

I grew up in South Philly (yo) and strongly believe that ‘taking a beating’ for improper conduct is a social good. During the 1980’s, and I assume to this day, the honorable Philadelphia police would offer a beating as an alternative to arrest for minor offenses. If you took the beating the cops then thought of you as a stand-up kid.

I think I saw at least one person predicting that Artest would be traded to the Sixers. Sounds about right.