This is one of those times that I'm glad I don't have cable. I can imagine how this thing has been plastered all over sports TV the last 24 hours...and I had to watch it on YouTube on a tip from Jeff. It does feel good sometimes to limit the amount of crap that gets thrown at your face. Moving on...
I don't have any special views on what happened or try to rise above the action citing a bigger picture. What happened, happened. Sports are based on competition. I'm not defending what took place, just reminding everyone that this is a result of the environment we create, it's not the first time, not the worst time, nor the last time.
It's funny, SI has a slideshow with the 22 "most memorable sports brawls." Most memorable...that sounds pretty positive to me. Most notorious...that would have painted a bleaker picture. The porblem is, when I clicked through the slideshow, I couldn't help but grin when I saw Robin Ventura in a Nolan Ryan headlock taking it to the face. Or when Michael Barret took out A.J. Pierzynski for a collision at the plate when Barret never even received the ball, as a former catcher myself, thought "Pierzynski should have known better, he deserved that."
I've been in basketball games where I got frustrated, and fouled the other team hard, so I can't blame Collins, and he was prepared for what he got. Isiah Thomas is an asshole. Everyone in the country can agree to that. He played dirty and apparently now he coaches dirty. But again, it's happened before. And had the melee not ensued, we'd never be talking about this. That being said, Stern should have suspended him, evidence or not. Suspend him while you are investigating the matter. This was too big to mess up. Carmelo Anthony is feeling pretty dumb right now. I've been there, every guy has, you get so caught up in the adrenaline, you can only see the guy in front of you...he took a swing. Most guys don't actually connect though. And the ones that do, usually don't run away afterwards.
All in all, I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about this. In my opinion, the suspensions should have been doubled, and Isiah should have been right there with the players. The NBA is not far enough removed from the 'Malice in the Palace' to let this go with a slap on the wrist. The refs did the right thing by ejecting all 10 players on the court. David Stern dropped the ball on the resulting suspensions. If Ron Artest was involved, he would have been banished from basketball.
On a similar note: I hate talking about him, but Terrell Owens has gone above and beyond. To me, go ahead and run up the score in a basketball game...it's on my team to play better, and we're all supposed professionals. But spit in my face 6 plays into a game because you can't take the trash talk that you're famous for saying yourself...inexcusable. If I was DeAngelo Hall, well, I'll censor the following thought. Seriously, is there anything more degrading than spitting in a man's face. I can't believe Hall took the high road and did not retaliate, then did the smart thing by instructing the league on how to keep their credibility and validate his non-reaction. Instead, the league drops the ball, and fines T.O $35,000. That number is wholly insignificant. Owens just signed a 3 year, 25 million dollar contract with a 5 mil bonus. The math isn't perfect, and the contract isn't guaranteed, but that's roughly $600,000+ per game. That means he could spit in the face of every offensive and defensive player on the opposing team, before losing one game's salary...Now I know I'm going overboard, but he should have been fined at least a game's salary, which should go to Mr. Hall, and then get suspended another game without pay. T.O. wasn't the only one to spit in Hall's face this weekend. The NFL did too.
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The length of the suspensions satisfied me. The 500K fines to each organization made me pretty happy, too. I don't know if Stern can suspend Thomas, but he certainly should. Remember last year when John Chaney was going to be fired after he sent someone into the game to injure a St. Joe's player? Isiah Thomas needs to be smacked, not just suspended. If your team is getting blown out, IT IS BECAUSE YOUR TEAM SUCKS, and you are the coach and GM, so why not get some good players instead of coaching hard fouls?
As for TO, I dare him to spit at Brian Dawkins on Sunday. Suspension wouldn't be necessary after that.
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