Friday, Nov. 19: It was a pleasant night at our apartment. We were entertaining plenty of slightly tipsy, rather joyful bright young men and women, listening to Mos Def's new jam and preparing to head out to our friend's 21st birthday party. The Television was playing an entertaining basketball game between two heated NBA rivals, the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers had begun to pull away and sealed up the game. On a meaningless fast break with less than a minute to go, Ron Artest fouled Ben Wallace probably a little too hard as Big Ben swooped in for the dunk. Wallace was pissed and shoved Artest hard in the face, which prompted a "WHOA!" from the crowd in Apartment 618.
"Yo, Evan! Turn down the music and turn up the TV!" And Evan did.
The two teams got in each others' faces for a little while, jabbering trash talk and pretending they were going to throw punches. Artest, who has a history of being a hothead, tried to take himself out of the situation by lying down on the scorer's table. The situation seemed to be coming to a close.
THWUNK. A plastic beer cup comes flying out of seemingly nowhere and nails Artest in the chest. That's when the Palace at Auburn Hills broke into an unprecedented, full-blown riot.
Artest flew into the stands, right past the fan who threw the beer, toward a dorky little fan with glasses (who will soon be very rich). The dork looked excited by the spectacle before realizing Artest was coming for him. His eyes grew wide and he yelled something to the effect of "Oh crap!" before Artest knocked him on the ground and came mentally within inches of pummeling him. Artest was quickly swarmed by a crowd of drunken Pistons fans, prompting teammate Stephen Jackson to fly into the stands and nail poor glasses man in the face with the hardest punch since the Mike Tyson-Peter McNeely fight. Pistons announcer Rick Mahorn, Pacer David Harrison and Piston Rasheed Wallace followed both men and attempted to separate Jackson and Artest from the drunken nuts.
When Artest finally got back onto the court, another fan (we'll call him Fatty) approached him with his dukes up. Artest gave him the old "1-2." Fatty survived Artest's blow, but an unnamed Pacers assistant coach tackled him to the ground. After the coach was pulled out of the scrum, big man Pacer Jermaine O'Neal torpedoed Fatty to the floor with an M. Bison punch from"Streetfighter 2." At this point, the arena looked something like L.A. during the Rodney King riots. A fan threw a plastic chair indiscriminately, hitting a Detroit security guard. Beers were flying like it was a frat party, and police were required to escort both teams off the floor.
Even people who didn't watch this game had a strong opinion of it. Some of them would point to the childish behavior and charge the NBA unfairly as a whole for the impurities and inequalities of professional basketball. One who happened to really irk Apartment 618 was Dave Bergman and his condemnation in the Nov. 22 edition of The Eagle. Bergman begins by simply getting the score wrong, claiming that Artest reacted to a loss to the Pistons that didn't exist. The Pacers were ahead 15 points at the time of the foul. Comments on the NBA should be reserved for those who WATCH THE GAME.
Beyond that, Bergman makes our friend Fatty look like the orphan in a Christmas special. Hey Fatty and Bergman, news flash: Don't wander onto an NBA court and raise your fists in a threatening manner toward an NBA player. And especially don't be such a moron to take on a crazy bastard who just randomly attacked another fan before scooting toward the locker room. Reading the article would make one think that the Pistons fans were having a Thanksgiving dinner instead of pelting the players with beer and much harder objects. But the man who threw the catalyst brew actually had multiple felonies, including assault with intent to do bodily harm, and was not allowed to drink any alcohol, much less throw it, based on the terms of his probation.
And then comes the wildly illogical charge tied into the fight: that NBA players are totally self-absorbed, lack any idea of fundamental ball and have destroyed the league while eating small children. Bergman forgets that in Major League Baseball, Texas Ranger Frank Francisco tossed a chair toward fans. Or that NCAA football had a brawl of its own the very next day. He does mention that the NBA has a chance to pick up fans from the NHL, an organization that saw a riot in 1979 and a player breaking another player's neck on the ice just last year.
But not only is the leap illogical, but flat-out false. If hot tempers and brawls were the antithesis of fundamental hoops, then we wouldn't have seen the two best defenders in the league, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest, get into a fight. Lebron James is likely the best passer since Magic Johnson. Brian Cardinal, Brent Barry, Ray Allen, Earl Boykins, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitski, Peja Stojakovic, Tim Duncan (nicknamed the Big Fundamental) and Yao Ming display fundamental shooting, great passing and a flair for the game that has never been seen before. Honestly, if high-flying dunks and 15-foot turnarounds irritate you, then we hear there is a middle school game to watch down the street from AU this weekend where they run some solid pick and rolls and focus only on fundamental, "pure" basketball.
NBA basketball is a spectacular sport because it does things that mere mortals can only dream about. Pistons fans were childish and stupid. Not every NBA player is as crazy as Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson. And fundamentals have not entirely been abandoned in the league. Are there any other myths we need to dispel, or have people who were watching Desperate Housewives at 10:00 on Friday night instead of the game written enough articles about the incident?
Daniel Cohen and David Cushman are juniors in the School of Public Affairs.
