Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? No, your assertion that the fans, or one fan in particular, are blameless. Artest is clearly most at fault for what happened. But you're attempting to give a pass to the fans. Not cool.
I am not making up excuses at all for Ron Artest. What he did was quite stupid and lacked the common sense he is supposed to have. But the fact I have seen the same crap at the soccer games. In the heat of the battle Artest is in with Ben Wallace some jackass in the crowd goes and gets him riled up and he vents his anger towards Ben Wallace on the fans. Now can you tell me that he is alright in his head. The guy obviously has a few problems. I am telling you that this is the case. Eric Cantona did something similar a while back for my club Man Utd against Crystal Palace. Some stupid fan starts shouting some rubbish and Eric goes and give the infamous " Kung Fu Kick" The point I am trying to say is that yes Artest behaviour was inexplicable on Friday and so was Cantona's a few years back but they are human beings like us and some react differently at the abuse they get. SOME fans get on like they are robots and have no feelings All in all Artest got what he deserved but the Pistons should not go free. They should be made to play behind closed doors or something like AS Roma did for their fans' behaviour in the CL this season.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? I said one fan was not blameless. The others merely reacted when their fellow fans were attacked. If some thugs break into my neighbors house and start assaulting him, I'm going to do whatever I can to help him and punish the thugs.
This ridiculous playing behind closed doors or losing home games or whatever is all nonsense. It's nonsense when it's done in Europe and it's nonsense when it's suggested here. The club has nothing to do with the fans. If somebody breaks the rules, punish him and ban him from the stadium. If a team fails to deal with repeated fan abuse then and only then should they be held accountable. The Pistons do not have a history of fan violence.
This is complete rubbish you are saying. A club or team or whatever should take responsibility for their own fans. It does not matter if it is one fan or a stadium full the fact is that it is from a person or persons associated with the club. It does not matter if they have a history of fan violence or not. Your whole reputation can change in a minute as you saw in the incident last Friday.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? Why do you keep making excusses for the fan(s)? I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I agree with Ted. Artest went over the top, but the fans had no right to behave the way they did, either. How does taunting a player courtside back up the fans that were assulted by Artest and Oneal? How throwing ******** at the players as they were leaving the floor back up the other fans? How does beating somebody when they are down on the ground (I talk of the football payer sized black guy laying a beat down on one of the Pacers) back up the other fans? In fact, why did the fans feel the need to get involved in the first place? Maybe Detroit doesn't have a history of van violence. But the point is to stop the behavior league wide. You think that fining a team is gonna hurt the fans? What do you think is gonna happen when Detroit plays in Indianna? Your comments indicate that if the Indianna fans did the same thing, nothing should happen to them. Having the games played behind closed doors is a preventive measure to the rest of the league, and notice to all that security needs to be better. This incident happend in Detroit, but I would agrue the same point whether it happened in Philly, Orlando, Denver, or even with my Lakers.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? And by the same logic, Jermaine Oneal is also blameless, yet he got a heavy suspension.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? see sig below besides, we all know that if the location was reversed you would be calling for indianapolis to be carpet bombed
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? If the Pistons go up into the stands in Indiana and start punching random fans then they would deserve whatever abuse the fans hand back to them.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? Then Indiana fans should just start firing things at the Pistons players as soon as they come out for pregame warmups. And the Pistons will have to just sit there and take it.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? If that happened I would blame Reggie Miller.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? The frist stone was thrown by a Pistons' fan. I know you'll correct me, but we can alway go to the tape.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? As if that's what happened in Detroit. If the Pacers fans start firing things at Pistons, I trust the security will come in and remove them. But, you see, the players have to give security the chance to do their jobs and not immediately react at the first throw.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? I've asked this twice, in different ways: Why did the guy who threw the beer, think he needed to throw that beer?
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? Exactly. It's not like these guys are all alone. They have team security and arena security, plus other enforcers on their sides. They would be really dumb to react.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? Let me ask you a question. Does having a plastic cup of beer justify leaping into the crowd and attacking someone who had nothing to do with the cup being thrown? The guy who threw the cup was an idiot and should be suspended from going to the palace ever again, what Ron Artest did could have caused serious injury and did cause minor injury and he very well could face some steep legal trouble. You tell me which was worse.
Re: WHat did you think about the Detroit/Indiana fight??? I hope you read this thread, as we have visited this point many times over...and I never said the two were equal.
Okay, I understand that charging the stands is horrible. However, I do believe Artest's suspension is too harsh. After all, throwing a cup of beer at someone is unacceptable. Yell and scream and point fingers all you want, but physically throwing things, especially a cup of beer at a person is asking for trouble. Artest has sent a message that NBA players are also human beings, just because they get paid a lot of money, it doesn't mean we have the rights to throw beers at them. The fan that threw the beer has crossed the line. Unacceptable behaviour. I would say Artest should be suspended, but considering how he did not start the entire incident, he should not be suspended for the remainder of the season. 30 game suspension would have justified everything.
Artest got what he deserved. He sould not have charged the crowd at all. He did not just act confrontationally, but violently. It is a shame that he will not be charged with criminal assualt and battery charges.