Steed's team in a brawl

tennis_balls

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Knicks and Nuggets in a 10 man brawl. It really wasn't as bad as I expected after hearing ESPN build it up.

For the first time in my life I think I agree with Isaah Thomas on this one: The Nuggets' star players should not have been at this point in a lopsided game. Isaah didn't come out and say it directly, but this one is on George Karl.

Carmello Anthony is immature and cocky so this thing could turn out to be the crossroads for his career. Even though he's a star player and the punch he threw was more like a slap, I can't see how the league can't come down hard on him. My prediction: Anthony will receive a "shocking" suspension for the rest of this season including the playoffs.
 
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Wow, I missed this thread...


Actually, I was half-expecting the same kind of suspension that you were mentioning here "tennis_balls". I have no problem with 15, or even if it was for the entire year.


The whole thing was totally over-cooked by the media (nothing new there), although it was fun to watch on all the sports highlight shows.


To set the record straight, I'm not a KNICKS fan (that pretty much started and ended with the Ewing era). I'm a fan of players primarily, and secondary comes the teams (blame that on free agency). I generally root for the:


- Toronto Raptors: I was raised in Canada, and I've followed them closely since Isiah made the team's first selection in the '95 Draft (Mighty Mouse). I actually liked what he had done in his very brief tenure with the team. They played hard those first couple of years. I like what they're doing with the team now as well, although it may not translate into many wins... yet.


- Sacramento Kings: I liked them when they were losers prior to the Webber era, loved them during the Webber era, and like them still today (because I'll always appreciate Ron Artest's craziness and Kevin Martin can flat-out score). I don't like their owners, much like I don't like Cuban, because of their cockiness... but they're certainly entertainers and anything but stuffy! I NEVER liked the cowbells though...


- Charlotte Bobcats: I like that Jordan is part-owner of the team. I like all of their draft picks, and the players they've accumulation via expansion picks and trades. I'm glad they weren't able to get Iverson, because he'd devalue the rest of the team (as he's going to do with the Nuggets). I'm not talking in terms of gate attraction, I'm talking about how his surrounding cast put up such paltry numbers while playing with him, they can never get fair market value. Okafor is a rock down-the-middle, Sean May will get more time off of the pine and produce, and Felton was selected high for a reason (he'll come around as Chris Paul and Deron Williams already have).


- Golden State Warriors: I like the Rick Barry era most of all, Run-TMC was fun to watch (although overrated because they weren't really winners), Sprewell has to be one of the All-Time 2nd round picks and was absolutely great when he was with them (ignore the choking incident), they should have kept Webber, although I'll never quite get the Billy Owens thing and why Nelson ABSOLUTELY needed him. And Jason Richardson is one of my favorite (and underrated) players in the league (who just came off an abysmal game where he went 4-19... Ben Wallace is a better shooter these days... scary thought).


Picking-on Isaah is "overrated", and overlooking anything good he ever accomplished in his career seems to be en vogue. He might not be all sweet, but he was an assassin on the court, he can spot talent, and he can rally his players, and he looks damn good for a guy who's losing sleep over what the media's saying. I'm not a Thomas fan, although I don't dislike him either. To this day, I can't think of a better dribbler in the history of the NBA. That shit he used to do going between his legs, and nailing 18-footers, was elite. The man played with passion, and he walked away from the game a tad early because of that pride.


He's not a good GM, but there's still time to correct his mistakes. What seems to be forgotten (and shouldn't be), is that Frank Layden gutted the team before Thomas came on deck. He was bound to fail. Layden assembled the worst talent in the league, and set the wheels in motion. Thomas tried to do too much on the fly, and I believe he's better at bringing talent along slowly (he did that in Toronto and Indiana).


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I like George Karl, he's a nut case at times, a mad-scientist/strategist, and is uncool yet cool all at the same time. By good friend (just today) was telling me a story about how Karl and Sonics were once working-out Van Exel prior to the Draft he was in. Van Exel refused to do anything that the coaches had asked him to do, and Karl reamed him out (as he should have). As we all know, Van Exel is famous for being too talented for having been chosen in the 2nd round (like Sprewell). Despite not getting along, and having-it-out with the malcontent, immediately after the work-out, Karl spoke highly about Van Exel, and said that he "liked him". Odd, very odd man that Karl. He loves the idiots of league (as I generally do as well... although I wouldn't want to coach them as he enjoys doing). Mike Dunleavy is similar, by that he can work well with the cancer in the league, and make something good happen (Adelman is similar as well). All fine coaches, but they don't seem to get the respect that the Riley's/Brown's/Jackson's do.


I agree that Karl should have taken out his starters, and it's pretty clear why he was rubbing it in at this point. I happen to think that Stern has seen enough of the Thomas bashing, and was well aware what Karl was doing, thus he didn't bring down the hammer on Thomas as many were expecting him to do.


The fight itself was rather tame, and completely blown-up. Nate Robinson is an absolute punk, who's insane (he really is...). Anthony is probably a nicer guy than his sucker-punch would indicate, but he needs to get rid of that hip-hop image that's so important to him. I can't take the players who need to be defined by their street "cred" all the time. Jordan wasn't like that, nor is Bryant. I respect that part about them. Hip-hop and the NBA makes sense, they're a great pair, but not all of the ghetto/turf crap.


Steed

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liquidsoap

Shesh steed you cant like every team....
Can you???


Just 2 in the EAST, 2 in the WEST (there are afterall... 30 teams!!!).


Again, if push-comes-to-shove, then I guess I like a grand total of 4 teams. Really though, I'm a fan of the player over the team. I was a HUGE Michael Jordan fan, who just happened to play for the BULLS. So, I rooted for the BULLS, but then again... not really. With a team like the KINGS, I happen to be a Ron Artest fan and he just so happens to play on a team that I've never had a problem with... If I lived in an NBA city, or grew-up in an NBA city (which I did not), I would most certainly root for the team first. I was born and raised in Winnipeg, therefore I bled the red/white/blue of the JETS NHL franchise. I once felt the same way about the Toronto BLUE JAYS, although I never lived in Toronto, it is a Canadian team (although I'm not really rah-rah Canadian either...).


When you first start getting into a sport, you have to pick a team to root for, and you go from there. But like all sports, I'm not as big on the teams as I am on the players who play for those teams. Blame that on free agency I guess.



Steed

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[ I happen to be a Ron Artest fan and he just so happens to play on a team that I've never had a problem with...


:eek2: :eek2: :eek2:

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Sacramento Kings forward Ron Artest slapped a woman's face and grabbed her repeatedly, causing visible injuries, according to a sheriff's report made public Tuesday.
Artest was arrested Monday after a woman inside his home in a Sacramento suburb called 911 and said she had been assaulted.

"Victim sustained visible trauma after being repeatedly grabbed by Artest and pushed to the floor," said the Placer County Sheriff's Department report. "Artest then slapped victim's face (and) by use of force prevented victim from leaving."

The report also said Artest took a phone from the woman the first time she tried to call 911.

Artest was arrested Monday on suspicion of domestic violence and using force or violence to prevent his victim from reporting a crime. He was released from custody after posting a $50,000 bond and is awaiting a March 22 arraignment.

The remainder of the report is being kept confidential while the Placer County District Attorney's office considers charges, sheriff's department spokeswoman Dena Erwin said. She could not elaborate on the nature of the woman's trauma or her relationship to Artest.

Authorities also said a 3-year-old girl was inside the house at the time of the argument.

Placer County Deputy District Attorney Dan Quick said his office had yet to receive the report, but that prosecutors would review other evidence such as the 911 tape and photographs taken at the scene.

"In cases like this, we don't do anything special as far as our treatment of them," Quick said. "We want to see what evidence was gathered before we make a charging decision."

Erwin said the sheriff's department planned to post the 911 tape on its website Tuesday afternoon.

Artest's agent, Mark Stevens, said he planned to release a statement later Tuesday.

"We're trying to get the facts straight," he said.

Kings coach Eric Musselman told reporters Tuesday that he spoke to Artest by telephone Monday night but would not describe their conversation. The Kings indefinitely removed Artest, the central figure in the 2004 brawl between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons fans, from the team while they seek more information about the arrest. He continues to receive his salary.

"We're just kind of wait and see," team spokesman Troy Hanson said. "I think there's a lot of things we still need to look at."

Sheriff's deputies were called to Artest's five-acre estate in a gated community 25 miles northeast of Sacramento about 9:30 a.m. Monday. They said they found the player sitting quietly outside, the windshield of his Hummer shattered by a pot thrown by the woman.

Monday's incident was Artest's latest run-in with local authorities. Last month, county animal control officers seized his Great Dane, Socks, because it wasn't being fed.
 
not sure of your intention but it appears as a bit of a cheap-shot to johnsteed the way you attatched his quote.

i like Artest's game as well. it doesn't mean I know what the guy is like off camera and somehow support this sort of ugliness.
 
not sure of your intention but it appears as a bit of a cheap-shot to johnsteed the way you attatched his quote.

i like Artest's game as well. it doesn't mean I know what the guy is like off camera and somehow support this sort of ugliness.

nope, no cheap shot at all, i just wanted to hear what others, including the colorful mr steed thought about this.

seems to me like more and more of todays athletes are finding themselves in trouble with the law.

as to artest, would i like to see him in a cavs uniform?...sure, but what kind of person don't feed their dog?:confused:
 
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Here are some random thoughts on this one...


max1mike

seems to me like more and more of todays athletes are finding themselves in trouble with the law.


Media. There's too much of it now, good or bad. Athletes have been doing stupid things since the earliest days of any professional league. It's just that the press is always looking for these type of slip-ups, and there's a lot more money these days to pay for this kind of information. Ron Artest is the easiest hit, because he's had a succession of problems, and he's always bound to do something "wrong" at any given moment. I never condone people doing stupid things, but Ron Artest is NOT the only pro-athlete (never mind everyday people) who's doing stupid things. Even the so-called "good guys" do things just as bad (if not worse).


Ron Artest is made-out to be some kind of walking-time-bomb, but I don't completely buy into all of that. Why?



a) He adores Dennis Rodman and there'll always be a cry for media attention; probably half of what Rodman inherited from his time spent with Madonna no doubt.


b) As said above, even the slightest things could and probably will be blown-out of proportion, because a host of scribes need their meal-ticket.

c) Useless information still sells newspapers.


tennis_balls

i like Artest's game as well. it doesn't mean I know what the guy is like off camera and somehow support this sort of ugliness.


I'm actually pretty f*%#ing ticked-off with Artest at the moment, because he was on my Yahoo! FANTASY roster and I dropped him a little over a week ago, solely on the reports that the KINGS weren't going to allow him to play for the remainder of the year... OOOOPPS!!! Thank you useless FOX sports updates for tipping-me-off in the wrong direction. :mad: He suited-up no less than 2 days after I had dropped him. That was a huge loss, considering that over the past couple of months, he had been hitting roughly 50% of his FG and was playing in control. Grrrrrrrrrrr... Needless to say, he was picked-up moments before I got word that he was activated again. :(


Edit-out pages of cursing and crying...

Edit-out webcam shots of Steed destroying his living room...


I've said it in other posts, but Artest is not only a "fantasy" god (when he's NOT launching-up shots like World B Free), but a great in-game player. When the whistle blows, he's tenacious and a guy who's easy to root for. For the same reason that I can't get into LeBron James, I CAN get into Ron Artest. He plays both ends of the court, which few stars do. Probably the toughest guy in the league, even though he's "only" 6'7". He would have slaughtered Ben Wallace (who's in the top 5% of NBA tough guys) had they truly gone toe-to-toe.


Something I wanted to touch-on, was how people (namely scribes) use someone like the likes of a Ron Artest, a Barry Bonds, or an Owens as primes examples of what is wrong with society today. I read columnists everyday, who always push this higher-than-thou type of jargon as to why these people are bad. Fine. Okay, they'd GREAT examples as to how NOT to go about doing things.


But who's to say that the very people who are constantly pushing their angles down our throats, are truly better people. Why are all of these two-bit columnists that are finally given an outlet to voice their opinions, suddenly being viewed as earth's saviors, and our moral compasses as to what's right and wrong with the world today? Are these people perfect? They never slip-up? Perhaps not to the degree of someone throwing a brick at their spouses Hummer, but aren't their a lot of people who don't have perfect marriages?


It's funny, that the very papers/magazines/websites/programs who are constantly pointing their finger at these naughty athletes, don't seem to have a problem promoting them in their advertisements, which in turn gives them both (generally) lots of money. Gee, what's wrong with North American society? Just athletes? Could we start with the decay of values that go hand-in-hand with the "bling-bling" and raunchiness that generally grab headlines? I happen to like a lot of Hip-Hop, but are these people really the type of people I want to look up to? Do people who care SO much about "street-cred", that next bottle of Krystal, and everything seedy that they can come up with, need any more air-time than they're already getting? They're always in the headlines. People generally don't want to read headlines about all of the good things going on, so we're left with chaos.


Getting back to Artest, he's VERY wet behind the ears. He will not likely change. But he's an enigma, much like Dennis Rodman is/was. They're harmless, because I highly doubt that it's "cool" to copy what they're doing.


What's scary to me though - particularly in the NBA - is that MANY like to do what people like Allen Iverson do, which is be a punk. A great one-dimensional all-heart scorer yes, but he's the poster child of con and hoodlum. Toss-in a hood wannabee with tons of tools and lots of laziness in Vince Carter. How about .5 dimensional dunker and hardly finisher Darius Miles? How about thug-promoter and drug-backer Carmelo Anthony? You've got to love how LBJ and D-Wade don't necessarily want to distance themselves from that teenage popularity contest.


I'm going to sound like some old grandfather here, promoting someone from years past, but I would look up to someone like Michael Jordan (as a player, and in part from what little I may know about him in general). Why?


- He was never a punk, trash-talker yes, but never a punk.


- Didn't fall into the category of having to prove that he's an "individual" by loading his body with tattoos, because everybody else was doing it (which people fail to realize that since most young people get tattoos, it's no longer a statement of being different... just the same).


- He ALWAYS came to play, ALWAYS practiced hard, and played both ends of the court. I don't necessarily carry about the player who's always willing to get dirty and sacrifice his body (that to me is stupid and something the scribes seem to fall too much in love with... think: Darrin Erstad), rather the player who fully utilizes his talents, and doesn't cheat himself or those around him by holding back for the party after the game (think: LBJ, Carter, and go through 90% of the NBA...). Oh yeah, even when he was making all of his big bucks, he always tried to get better and turned all the negatives as a means of motivating himself. He's anything but a sourpuss or a pouter.


- He didn't meet his opponent-du-jour at mid-court, to give them a big "thug" hug, and give them the "call me" signal. "Oh great, there's Vince givin' T-Mac another love hug and telling him a joke that they're both doing their best impersonations of Arsenio Hall laughing like they're about to barf-out a babies." BS! The day I root for Wade (and he's the one I expect to change first... if that's ever going to happen), is the day he walks past an LBJ low-five with just a dirty-glance as if to tell him that you're in for a rough night now and until the end of the game. Enough of this agent/gang/family crap!



Side Note: Something I love about Kobe Bryant, is that he's suddenly becoming the old guard (despite still being only 28 with best yet to come). He's never really been accepted by the rest of the NBA community, and I'm happy about that. I never really like him before these past couple of years, but I want him to make an example out of all of these punks. He's the only SUPERSTAR who can play both ends of the court, and do things that Jordan did. Wade reminds me of Jordan in some ways because of his fire, but Kobe's all around ability are on par with Jordan's game.


Side Note II: Is there anything more boring than watching LBJ get his usual 26 points, with 3 hard-dunks, nice passes, and absolutely no energy between? I hope that 10-years later - when he's the 'old guard - that I'm still not rooting for him.


- Jordan didn't push the hood on anyone. Sure, he wasn't exactly from the hood either, but he didn't play the race-card that others seem to love doing. He made no excuses.


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As a closing statement, I generally don't care for the mistakes that the athlete makes off the court, because I'm solely interested in them BECAUSE of what they do on the court. That's why they are where they are. It's the same for actors, writers, or anyone else in the spotlight.


Waking-up each morning to hoards of gossip headlines about other people's problems, doesn't make me feel better about myself or instantly propel me into the guy side of humanity. That's a wrong way to go about looking at it, and getting back to some of the voices in the media, they seem to get carried away with thinking that they're on the good side of that spectrum.



Steed

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