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Defending the Indefensible Ron Artest
by Roberto Diego
Copyright 2004 Roberto Diego - distribute as desired but links and copyright must be included
What Ron Artest did against the Detroit
Pistons fans was wrong. But I think there is a larger picture and that
is fan behavior and league discrimination against small market professional players
and teams.
After years of watching their team defeated by flagrantly, and possibly
deliberate, bad officiating in the NBA, the Indiana Pacers have finally put
together a championship caliber team, one with the talent and power to win
against even bad officiating and small market prejudice by the league.
Through the leadership of Larry Bird and the Pacer management, this quiet
town has worked diligently to put together the tools to finally break through
the obstacles of winning against big market, big money teams like Los Angeles
and New York.
Now the fans of their strongest regional rival have attacked our players,
causing them to react, and with the complicity of the league, that all of a
sudden wants to take a stand, have pulled off the emasculation of the Pacers.
Who benefits? The Detroit Pistons. Had Ron Artest had an eye put out by
that beer cup, we'd all be singing a different tune.
The media, in an endless repetition of the video of this catastrophe, is
piling on the athlete, saying he is a pampered rich boy superstar. Not
only is Ron Artest not a superstar yet, he is decidedly one of the coming
superstars - and that makes him a danger to the major markets that want to
keep the NBA championship to themselves. Certainly, like many athletes,
he is a personality with an attitude and that is indefensible when it comes
to doing violence. He is certainly not well-behaved, but the attacks on
him represent a piling on over Indianapolis, a denigration of our city that
is a small market, our citizens who do not behave like the thugs in Detroit,
our players who were attacked.
Major market news outlets, who dominate
the news analysis to favor their own teams, are continuing to pile on the
city of Indianapolis for defending their players - safe in the knowledge
that, this time, they can take a stand against violence because the city
being attacked is not their own thug-infested city - and knowing full well
that if one of their players had been punished in the same way, they would be
screaming about the unfairness of it. They have treated Larry Bird, one of
our nation's renowned former superstars, like he is also a thug for defending
Ron Artest. Cities that idolized Bird when he played and dominated are
now conveniently disowning him because he stands behind his players' right to
play without objects being thrown at them.
Had this happened to an athlete of a major market city who was crucial to the
championship hopes of the team, there would be an uproar the size of a
Florida hurricane. But Indianapolis is Indianapolis, a quiet, small market
town with quiet, well-behaved fans who don't have the market clout or the
media power to threaten economic or public relations harm to the league.
So the league and the major media pile on our player for laying down on
a table and defending himself against possible career ending injuries.
If I were a gangster, and I wanted to ensure that my betting on sports would
earn me millions, I would hire a thug to go to an NBA game, let himself get
arrested for throwing something at a huge star, and thereby eliminate my
team's major challenger. This is the signal the NBA is sending out to
those who traffic in the illegal. Indianapolis' dominance in that game
against Detroit was a clear signal, that this time, there would be a
small-town payback for years of being ignored. What we have here is not
a moral outrage against violence but a convenient elimination of a true
threat to the basketball dominance of the major markets. What would we
be talking about had the shoe been on the other foot?
Indianapolis is not a small market. It is a quiet city that just happens to have some of the finest sporting events in the nation. Watch television sports and you've become familiar not only with the city's landmark Monument Circle but another landmark that makes it one of the most unique in all of sports: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway which just happens to be the location for the largest single day spectator event in the world, the Indianapolis 500, not to mention one of NASCAR's premier races, the Brickyard 400 and the only venue for the US Formula 1 Grand Prix. These are not small market events. Stay around this city for a time, and you'll find the Natatoreum where major swimming events take place and Conseco Fieldhouse, one of the finest arenas in the country that frequently hosts major concerts and NCAA tournaments.
In addition, the city, through years of diligent
work by civic leaders, hosts the Indianapolis Colts that boasts superstars
like Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James. The city is known
for having some of the nations finest college and high school basketball
players that go all the way back to such players as Oscar Robinson, Billy
Keller and others, a tradition of grass-roots athletic development
culminating in the Indiana Pacers with a long championship tradition in the
ABA, a team that, after years of poor treatment by NBA league officials, has
shown that it can challenge top teams in the NBA. Indianapolis is a
city on the move, a safe place to live, with schools that actually teach
young people, and you get the picture. We have the best of the best and
relatively less of the huge problems found in major cities.
Just ask yourself why Ron Artest is being attacked. Is it because he did what
he did? Other athletes have done it without this severe a punishment. Ask
yourself if this had happened to Michael Jordan in his heyday and you'd have
your answer. You know that there would be an outcry defending MJ. But Ron
Artest is an easy target, a player that the league wants to use as an example
and at the same time thwart the championship hopes of Indianapolis because
that city is not a major market in their view. Ask Commissioner Stern if he
would have done this to any championship contender in New York, Chicago or LA
and you will get a lie.
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