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Opinion: Stern recognizes the cleanup begins with his house
By Jim Litke (Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-23 09:44
The basketbrawl in Detroit was not just about one league.
The gulf between the players and paying customers is growing in every sport.
Too many fans believe too many athletes with too little devotion to their craft
are making way too much money. And way too often, the athletes live down to
those expectations.
So let's be clear: This mess could have fallen into anybody's lap. But it
fell to NBA commissioner David Stern because his league is where the gulf is the
widest at the moment.
``We didn't ask to be at the epicenter of this discussion,'' he said Sunday.
But Stern didn't shrink from it, either.
He proved that Ron Artest, his Pacers posse and those few dozen fools in the
stands who wanted a piece of them aren't the only people around the NBA who know
how to throw a punch.
And before Stern hit back, he didn't take a vote, worry about how the players
union would respond or appoint a commission and wait for the findings. He went
right after the troublemakers he could identify, suspending Artest and Indiana
teammates Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O'Neal for a total of 128 games and cost
them a combined $12 million in salary. Detroit's Ben Wallace, who instigated the
on-court portion of the brawl, got six games. Pacers guard Anthony Johnson got
five and four others got off with a game each.
Better still, Stern was just warming up.
``This,'' he said at one point during a news conference, ``is about something
more profound.''
That something is about the boundary that separates the court from the
stands. And give Stern credit for this much: He acknowledged the players who
draw paychecks from his league have done more to blur that line than athletes
from any other sport, and just as important, that the whole thing took place on
his watch. And while the responsibility for the brawl may have started there,
Stern was smart enough to know it won't end there, either.
He vowed that nobody else involved who played a role in the melee was
untouchable, including the NBA's fans, its franchises and even the alcohol
companies whose dollars swell every team's coffers.
``Frankly, we've got a lot of work to do in the next several days and coming
weeks. It is our practice and has been our practice to deal with discipline
itself in a timely fashion, which we have,'' Stern said. ``There may be other
wrinkles.''
``Wrinkles'' was an interesting choice of words for someone about to embark
on one of the more ambitious sports overhauls in a while.
He removed one big obstacle by getting Artest off the floor for the rest of
the season, and the other troublemakers out of the way long enough to make at
least a small dent in their thick skulls and thicker wallets. In the bargain, he
might have cost the Pacers a chance at the Eastern Conference title for what, in
NCAA terms, is called a ``lack of institutional control.'' And he hinted that
the Pistons could still be held accountable if the league determines security at
the Palace was found wanting.
Maybe those were the ``wrinkles'' Stern had in mind.
But he also talked, correctly, about the ``social contracts'' and
``covenants'' that fans make when they buy a ticket to watch a sporting event,
and those won't be ironed out easily. Those were crumpled up long ago and thrown
on the floors in stadiums and arenas, alongside the spilled beers, and won't be
retrieved without some serious effort.
Forget about the fans who willingly -- and in the case of more than a few,
drunkenly -- took part in the melee. Those who didn't get what they were looking
for from Artest & Co., will hear from the Pistons soon enough. But their
absence can't be the only change in the makeup of the crowds, not just in
Detroit and not just in the NBA.
Those fans had more than a few reasons to taunt players in the league,
beginning with Latrell Sprewell's clueless rant a few weeks ago that he couldn't
feed his family on $10 million a year, and zeroing in on Artest, who has been a
problem child since he came into the league and added new admirers when he went
off recently about taking time off to promote his soon-to-be-released CD. Or
maybe they just missed hockey.
But none of it justified throwing beers, food, clothing and at least one
chair into the middle of what was already a volatile situation. It's happened at
NFL games with fans dissatisfied by a call, at baseball games over slights real
and perceived, and at soccer matches all over Europe and South America.
Stern's remedy for that wasn't new. Knowing that fans are likely to give as
much respect as they get, he imparted that lesson to the people on his side of
the equation as quickly and as forcefully as good judgment and his powers as
commissioner allowed. Then he asked fans in the stands to do their part.
``If 20,000 fans decided to go on a rampage,'' Stern said in answer to a
question about security, ``we'd have a serious problem.''
The NBA already does. And so does every other sports league and anybody else
who thinks the only people who've lost their grip on the importance of these
games are the ones who play them.
The dangerous few in every crowd are more inventive, more abusive and more
menacing. And unless the rest of us are serious about stopping them, the way
things are going, they'll be the only ones in attendance.
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