while i was traveling around in my car and doing my job, i was listening to both wfan and philly's 610 talking about the incident. unfortunately on the fan it was mad dog talking who is so negative about the nba. he constantly said that he is appaled about the nba and it is a sour product because of these players. 610 echoed the same sentiment. it cause me to think about the nba. how bad is the nba? one thing i noticed is the nba, as well as all other sports, try to cater to the youth. people are upset with the " hip hop" generation and that the nba as well as other sports cater to it. as far as i can remember, nba always had a history of doing such. you can go back to the late 70's when the nba tok the exciting players from the defunct aba to spice their ratings such as dr. j and daryl dawkins. epople were complaining then but it worked. then bird and magic came and they helped the nba more. then jordan tok it to another level. all of them reflected their generation. now, the nba is eveolving the same way it always had and older people are still complaining. then mad dog was saying that jordan did not act that way. hey, i can recall jordan getting into his fair share of fights as well as fighting teammates. as far as his personal life, constantly cheating on his wife and compusively gambling does not make him a boy scout. we go on about bird and his illegitimate children or magic's sex addiction. bottom line, people are looking at incidents and saying " see, look at those nba players". they are focusing on players with mentla problems or anger management problems which the league had a history with. i also do recall some brawls in the 70's and 80's that were out of control ( lambieer vs. barkley). it is a shame that people will take this incident and be repulsed by the players. this could hurt especially when a lockout could be looming. this is unfair.

the nba rules i love it i wish they would let the games be more physical some **** in this incident crossed the line but i still was very entertained and excited i know ill be watching pacers/pistons all year now... am i sick for that? lol

You're right Jazz. How about the Kermit Washington vs Rudy T incident?

Emotions run high in pro sports. That doesn't mean that all of the players who compete are bad guys. The double standard is this: players like Houston, Ray Allen and Michael Redd (3 of the nba's best shooters) don't get a lot of air time. But players with an "edge" do. For every player who has a bad temper there are 20 times as many who compete without consistantly getting into trouble. The message they send is that good guys are boring and guys with an "edge" are more entertaining. Therefore the ones with the edge are overexposed just because of their antics.

The NBA is just a reflection of society itself. You have guys who go to work, get along with everyone and then go home to their wives. You have the ones who distance themselves from everyone and does his own thing. Then you have guys who seems to not be able to stay out of trouble. It's no different in pro sports imo

My problem with the NBA which I have brought up before and others as well is that hardly any players can shoot anymore,dont know the fundamentals.Unless one of the elite teams are playing its hard for me to watch an NBA game..

"the Warriors are bring up the ball..clang!The Bulls rebound and bring up ball..clang!And so on.

I remember watching an old game from the 80s on ESPN classic and almost everyone was hitting their shots.It was so weird to see players actually shooting well as a team.There are a few now who can but not nearly as much as before.

There is nothing wrong with tying in the NBA with hip-hop.I believe some announcers are tying in all the criminal off the court behavior that seems so prevalent with NBA players with hip-hop which is wrong.

Some of this I blame on the players,some of it on the player's association for not letting Stern put in an age limit,some of it I put on Stern himself for marketing the flash more than the fundamentals,some of it I blame on networks like ESPN.There is enough blame to go around.

To be honest,if I werent such a die hard Knicks fan it would be hard to follow the game before the playoffs.

One article I was reading about the fight (I think it was Rhoden of the TImes) talked about the fans thinking it was another reality show. Interesting point. If you're going to talk about the hip-hop influence on the players shouldn't you also talk about the reality show influence on the fans, making them think they're legitimately part of whatever action goes on around them. Just cross that line, turn it into your own little spotlight time to highlight your idiocy, certainly you're entitled to it, right?

Btw when I watched all the replays yesterday I loved Wallace's shove to Artest's face. I think it's about time someone handled Artest the right way, on the court, directly in his face like that. And believe me, I trust Ben Wallace's judgement 1000 times more than Ron Artest's or any commentators'. If he felt Artest deserved to get his butt kicked after that foul (and who knows what else went on earlier in the game) then I'm with him all the way. As we've all documented many times here, the real problem started when the fan got involved and then Artest crossed the line himslef.

Back to the NBA and its history of problems, the 70's were a much darker time than now for the league. It was looked at as a cocaine league, as a league of showboaters with no defense whatsoever and no discipline on the court or off. The sex lives were freaking legendary. It was all the usual conservative v. liberal B.S. - this was pre-AIDS, heart of the sexual revolution, lots of issues with civil rights, this was the post-Vietnam "party " time of discos and feel-good vibes, which really pissed off a lot of old-timers. The biggest critics of the game were the old school college coaches. Bobby Knight (naturally) was a huge critic of the NBA, he acted like the league was Sodom and Gomorrah (his brand of human perversion and degradation was really something to revere, right?). Anyway, the league did have some genuine competition, though - even after absorbing the ABA. College hoops was amazingly good back then. And you had team identity because guys stayed 4 years. But it was really played out like an old-time generation gap issue - these "boys" are good citizens when they're under the steady hand of Knight, Wooden, Smith et al, but once they're turned loose in the big cities and the devil's workshops they go straight to hell.

Bird and Magic did start a new trend. Perfect pair to do it. They both had a ton of hip-hop to their games, they made every play exciting, you never wanted to take your eyes off either for a second on the court because they were so dramatic and creative in their play, while at the same time tough as hell and really team-oriented. They brought a new fan base to the league and brought the NBA up to major league status.

I think the league's real strong right now, scoring is up, new stars are soaring, by playoff time there should be several real strong contenders. I think Friday night's incident will serve as a good reason to address the "reality show meets gangsta" factor and keep those a-hole fans from getting on the court and keep those impulse-challenged players from going in the stands. But overall I think the game's doing fine and I think the Chris Russo's have such limited credibility anway that it's a waste of time to even listen to them at a time like this.