How could it be deliberate?
From Wikipeadia
If you can’t trust a man named World Peace then who can you trust?
Seven game suspension? He should have got seven months in jail. He could have killed that dude with a flying elbow like that.
On the contrary, you never trust a man named “World Peace”! Also known as the “Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard Effect”.
Deliberate. Nobody would play ball with a guy who just happened to threw elbows around like that.
Although, when World Peace elbows you to the head, you have to have been doing something terribly wrong.
You over-estimate David Stern’s power.
It was clearly deliberate, but I’m willing to concede a caveat. I don’t know that Artest was trying to ring Harden’s bell. I think he was caught up in his celebration and noticed Harden coming into his space to check him and he swung the elbow to clear him out, as if he were corralling a rebound. There was a complete absence of thought. Of course wildly throwing elbows to clear people out is wrong, and not being aware of what you are doing on a court is wrong, but perhaps those are somewhat less malicious than sizing a guy up and planting your elbow in his temple.
All that said, he absolutely should have been suspended for the rest of the season. Harden was hurt and may be out a while, head injury is a serious issue these days and shots to the head need to be treated more severely and you simply cannot have a worse “prior offense” than the Melee. If anyone should be on a zero-tolerance policy it’s Artest.
In the back of my head I was thinking the Thunder should have cleared the bench and come out swinging. Sure, they’d all have been suspended and fined but it would have clearly been defended in the media and the fines and suspensions on Artest would have to be much higher if he’d started a second brawl. Stern would have absolutely panicked if a big fight broke out over Artest’s actions again. Tactically, making it so Artest started a brawl would have been the best possible outcome for the Thunder when it comes to ousting the Lakers from the playoffs.
Metta World Peace’s motto: Think globally, act out locally.
Fortunately, the NBA got serious about punishing that kind of thing years ago and it doesn’t happen much anymore.
Yeah, but in this one rare case with Artest I think it’d have been worth the hit. Artest would get all the heat and blame.
I believe it would have been within Stern’s power and province to simply announce, along with the suspension, that the NBA was providing the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office with all relevant video. While I doubt any actual prosecution would have followed, the implication of the possibility would have been a strong message.
For symbolism, if nothing else, the suspension itself should have been calculated to preclude any possibility of MWP appearing in this year’s playoffs, or in (at least) the first game of the next season.
No, trying to get a player prosecuted is a terrible idea and it probably would have provoked some serious labor unrest. I am sure the district attorney has ESPN and YouTube, and they can make their own decision about prosecuting the guy without grandstanding from David Stern.
I might’ve given him the benefit of the doubt (due to his relatively angelic recent behavior) had this happened after a big shot at the end of the game. But with his team being down 10 points in the 2nd quarter? Nah. I do agree with others that he may not have been trying to hit Harden in the head. I don’t think that he even knew that it was Harden there as opposed to another Thunder player. But to throw such a reckless elbow deserves a major suspension. He really could’ve killed someone if that elbow landed in another spot. I do think that Stern did give him a bit of break due to 2 factors:
- He didn’t go after Harden and could not have known that he was going to hit his head.
- The Lakers would be severely handicapped in the Playoffs without MWP, and the NBA can’t afford to lose the SoCal-based revenue.
I didn’t say he should try to get him prosecuted, just acknowledge, once, the fact that such events might, in some circumstances, be larger than his own jurisdiction.
I’d call that part of his job, not grandstanding.
I would just like to mention that when I heard the name change (I don’t follow b-ball) and saw the video the following things happened:
The needle on my irony meter hit the WTF pin so hard it sheared the pin off.
The needle then spun around for several seconds at about 1500 RPM before flying off and breaking the glass covering it.
At this point smoke began to pour from the back of the unit, there was a large sprooong noise and what looks like a broken spring is dangling from the unit.
Guess I am in the market for a new irony meter. Do they make them with overload protection now?
Jimmy Kimmel said something like, “he aimed a little high with the name change; maybe he should have gone with Metta Recycle Your Cans or something like that.”
That’s what he’d be doing if he made a public announcement about sending game footage to the DA, and that is definitely how those actions would be viewed. Putting aside the question of whether or not World Peace deserves criminal charges - because I can understand the idea even though I’m skeptical - it would be a huge problem for Stern if the NBA players felt he was actually trying to bring the wrath of law enforcement down on a player. He’s in charge of discipline for the NBA, not criminal investigations: his decisions about suspensions are independent of what a prosecutor does. There have been a few instances where sports leagues have cooperated with the prosecution of players for stuff they did on the field, but you don’t see them trying to get the government to prosecute players for illegal hits. If someone wants to prosecute World Peace for that elbow, they’ll get in touch with the Lakers and the NBA.
Out of curiosity, other than criminal charges, would Harden or the Thunder have some civil recourse? Yes, I know anybody can sue anybody, but I wonder if the NBA has some sort of immunity to civil liability in their contracts.
Harden has been cleared to play, by the way. He could have played Wednesday, but was held out because the game did not mean anything for the Thunder. He’ll be on the court when the team begins its playoff series over the weekend.
Deliberate. Probably not head hunting, but clearly intended to give a shot to somebody and clear them out. I wanted to believe MWP had turned over a new leaf, but it’s clear he still has no impulse control.
I don’t think the NBA could have justified anything longer than 7 games. Most flagrant elbows result in 1 or 2 game suspensions. Punches draw much longer suspensions.