Last summer, The State News ran an editorial commending the Detroit Pistons and their fans for putting a blue-collar stamp on the otherwise-glitzy and egomaniacal world of professional basketball. In the era of me-first sports, the Pistons became known as the consummate team playing the consummate team game. To watch Detroit play basketball was to watch basketball the way it was meant to be played.
Until Friday.
The brawl between the Pistons and Indiana Pacers that engulfed the Palace of Auburn Hills in flames of mob rule Friday night will go down in history as one of professional sports' most infamous and unfortunate incidents ever. It's the low-point, the trough, the valley, the shadow and the black eye the NBA was so hopefully trying to avoid.
Since it's been virtually impossible to avoid the footage of the Pacers-Pistons-fans rumble, we'll spare the details. Since it happened, the blame has been spread thin over all parties involved. Some say it was the fault of Indiana's Ron Artest for losing his cool and racing into the Palace seats after a Pistons fan launched a beverage at his torso. Others blame Detroit's Ben Wallace for losing his cool, or Pistons fans for initiating a full-scale riot. The blame game is one of many facts we don't know about Friday's fracas.
But we know one thing. The NBA is forever changed. Every time there's a jump ball from now on, there is a lingering doubt that irresponsible fans and players will let adrenaline get the best of them and put everyone in the arena in immediate danger. It's an outside chance, to be sure, but remember that until Friday, it wasn't dreamt of.
Despite past incidents of violence, NBA basketball, like all other sports, somehow retained its innocence. Professional sports as a culture is money-driven in every respect from attendance to shoe contracts, but from tip-off to the final horn, the NBA sees 48 minutes of pure competition every night. That might be a rose-colored perception, but consider it in the sense that for every hockey fight, there's an image of Steve Yzerman hoisting the Stanley Cup or Al Michaels counting down the Miracle on Ice. In the world of athletics, with the seemly always comes the triumphant.
But this is what happens when the seemly overpowers every concept of ugliness we'd previously known.
Artest won't play in another game this season for his actions. Indiana's All-Star Jermaine O'Neal is out for 25 games and teammate Stephen Jackson sits for 30. Wallace will sit out six, and there are five others suspended for at least one. The NBA answered the bell on punishments, and it will be fascinating to see how Oakland County prosecutors clean up the rest. Since this scrap changed league history, it's rewarding to see the suspensions do likewise.
Regardless of who's to blame - players or fans - Friday's game was the low point of the NBA's entire history. Superlatives aside, fans now go to NBA games with the looming threat of fan-player violence, and security frankly doesn't know who needs protection. It's a dark day for the NBA and the players and fans involved. Let's see how they rebound.
