And that settles it.
The NBA – and David Stern specifically – have no spine.
There is no other conclusion to be made regarding the league and the man in charge after they took more than 48 hours to decide that Metta World Peace (the artist formerly known as Ron Artest) should receive a pathetic seven-game suspension for his vicious elbow to the head of James Harden on Sunday.
I read one columnist describe it as an “incident that was as ugly as they come in sports. Vicious, violent and wholly unnecessary.”
Man, that sounds oddly familiar.
Oh, right, World Peace was anything but peaceful during the Malace at the Palace in 2004. He was, however, vicious, violent and wholly unnecessary.
When are people going to get it? Rometta World Peaceatest is certifiably insane. And he has no business in a public forum to display his crazy.
Remember the speech from Nicole Kidman to Tom Cruise in “Days of Thunder” when he’s chasing the taxi cab? After she tries to bail out of a moving vehicle traveling at high speed, he follows her on foot and she breaks it down for him: He’s an infantile egomaniac and he’s scared. Control is an optical illusion that most people learn to cope with. And once you get a glimpse of it, the fear of the unknown sets in.
And Ron Artest is one scared individual.
He thanked his therapist after winning an NBA championship. My immediate question was: which one?
Forget all this crap about emotion and being excited he dunked over Kevin Durant. He violently jacked some dude in the side of the head, knocked him out and didn’t even offer to help him up.
Seven games? How about seven years? Ban this guy – for good.
And I’m a Lakers fan.
I’m also a fan of not wanting to see someone seriously hurt or injured at the hands of a man who’s been suspended 11 times in his career for over 100 games. Everything Artest does is unnecessary, just like his forearm shiver to JJ Barea last year that looked like a wrestling clothesline. I know it was the highly annoying JJ Barea, but still, we have to draw the line somewhere.
Punishment should fit the crime, in both civil and sport arenas.
Except if this was a civil issue, and Artest had a violent history like he does in the NBA, he’d be getting worse than seven games (or the equivalent of 15 days in jail and community service).
But the NBA does not think about morals, justice, right and wrong. It thinks about dollar signs and TV ratings. So it took 48 hours to decide that seven games was appropriate – because that amount of time won’t totally derail the Los Angeles Lakers title hopes.
If you are the Lakers, you can totally win a first round series against the Denver Nuggets without Metta World Peace/Ron Artest.
Can you get past the Oklahoma City Thunder in a potential Round 2? What about the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers or Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference Finals? Probably not.
And what looks better for the league? Lakers-Thunder in Round 2 or Nuggets-Thunder? How about Lakers-Clippers in the conference finals? Or Lakers-Grizzlies? Or a classic Lakers-Spurs series? What about the NBA Finals? More fans tuning in to see Lakers-Celtics or Lakers-Heat than, say, Grizzlies-Celtics? Spurs-Heat?
I’m not suggesting the playoffs are fixed. What I am suggesting is the NBA isn’t stupid. It sees the match-ups and it knows the Lakers – even with Artest/World Peace being a washed up has-been – stand a better chance of going deeper into the playoffs with World Peace than without him.
So let’s not pretend the punishment fit the crime and that seven games is supposed to deter The Artist Formerly Known as Ron Artest from doing, well, Ron Artest like things in the future.
There’s crazy and then there’s crazy.
And Metta World Peace is and always has been crazy.
He can change his name, dress up his charitable work, be an advocate for mental health awareness (ironic, since he has none) and pretend he’s not that same guy who charged into the stands eight years ago, but he is.
People who cover him in L.A. routinely mention you can see a different person in Ron Artest each day, you can see his inner conflict. He’s got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, constantly battling each other.
He doesn’t know who he is. He responds to both Metta and Ron. When you’ve got dueling banjos upstairs, how do you that comes out when someone gets involved in an emotionally contested game against an upstart rival who wants to overthrow your team’s reign as the Western Conference dynasty?
I’ll tell you how it comes out: with one of the most vicious and nasty physical acts against another player I’ve seen since Kermit Washington decked Rudy Tomjanovich decades ago.
And the longer you let him have an opportunity to display his crazy, the more opportunity there is for him to play a game in his mind: how can I top that last one? How can I get more attention?
C’mon Stern, show some fortitude.
End the era of World Peace in the NBA.
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