When God Closes a Door, He Openes a Window
by Jason at 6:05 am on November 22nd, 2004 in Entertainment
About a week and a half ago, Indiana Pacers guard Ron Artest asked for a month off to recover from the busy promotional schedule of his upcoming rap album. Mind you, this is a guy who makes nearly $6 million a year to play basketball.
Well, after this weekend, it looks like Artest will have all the time he needs to promote his album. Unless you’ve been living in a cave or perhaps Fallujah, you’ve seen the footage of Friday night’s brawl during the Pacers/Detroit Pistons game, the one where Artest and several of his teammates decided to go into the stands and start beating up fans. (If you haven’t seen this yet, do yourself a favor and check it out at espn.com.)
But hey, look at the bright side�now that Artest has been suspended for the rest of the season, it gives him plenty of time to promote his record. And since the suspension is without pay, he better get to work trying to make sure that it sells.
Just think�if this had happened a couple days earlier, he could have found a better outlet for his hostility; namely, the Vibe Awards. Timing is everything.
tom wrote:
seriously though, ive seen fans act like twats at sporting events. ive seen people throw free baseballs at darryl strawberry from behind when he was standing in the outfield in the late 80s. people think that because they spend money for seats they can act like jackasses. it made me happy to see a couple of those kinds of pricks get their asses whooped.
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 7:24 am ¶
Marc wrote:
I agree with Tom. Artest overreacted, but I still think he was within his rights defending himself.
If someone poured a drink over my head at work, they would get punched in the mouth too.
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 12:18 pm ¶
jamie beth wrote:
i have seen fans act like idiots, too. but the minute artest left the court and entered the stands he invited anarchy. in the stands the officials have no authority and the security gaurds clearly can’t control the players. artest is a big baby and probably, given his record, has emotional/anger management problems. if you were at work and got mad at someone and threw a desk or a chair at them, you wouldn’t be suspended, you’d be arrested and fired. he got hit with a cup of ice. he was pretending to be hurt at the time. clearly, he wasn’t.
and what i want to know is, now that the pacers are saved from paying millions of dollars in salary to these fools, they are actually, financially benefitting from the behavior of their poorly behaved egomaniacs. i think the money they are saving should be donated to charity in artest, etc. names. the pacers shouldn’t get ahead financially because of this.
cuban matches his fines in donations, i think if you’re going to be a crazy-head, you should at least follow in cuban’s crazy footsteps.
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 12:27 pm ¶
matt wrote:
>I agree with Tom.
A universal signpost that tells you to reconsider your position.
>If someone poured a drink over my head at work, they would get punched in the mouth too.
Artest punched at least two fans who didn’t throw beer on him. He can defend himself, but he should have let security handle it in the first place. Otherwise, he plays in a league that has rules and lives in a society that has laws. Plus he’s been in trouble before.
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 12:34 pm ¶
Jason wrote:
Should the fans be held accountable? Of course. Fans who were identified throwing things or going onto the court should have their season tickets revoked immediately. But even if the fans were dumbasses, that doesn’t excuse a player from going into the stands to punch some of them. And it certianly doesn’t excuse the other players who decided to follow him into the stands or start punching Detroit fans on the court itself. Bottom line: When you are a professional athlete, and make millions of dollars to play a game, you need to be able to stop yourself from snapping like Artest and the other Pacers did. No excuses.
Jamie: considering that the Pacers lost most of their team for 25-30 games, I’m pretty sure they will be punished enough in lost revenue.
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 12:41 pm ¶
jamie beth wrote:
jason: cohen senior said the same thing. another universal sign post?! :)
Posted 22 Nov 2004 at 1:54 pm ¶
thad wrote:
well now he’s got his ’street cred’ for his rap album. lol
seriously tho, both sides were wrong. the injustice of it all is the ‘fan’ that started this will probably sue for millions of dollars..
Posted 23 Nov 2004 at 4:58 am ¶