Sports fans are, I’m sure, already aware of the fight that broke out between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons fans on Friday night in Detroit. Ron Artest, the Pacers player at the center of the controversy, has already been in trouble this year for allegedly putting his record label before his basketball contract, as well as for a controversial flagrant foul which the NBA overturned.
Jon and I attended the game immediately preceding the fateful one, here in Indy against the Atlanta Hawks. While Indiana won, it was a close match, with Atlanta leading for the majority of the game. Given Atlanta’s record (two wins, five losses–the mirror image of the Pacers record), I had expected the game to be fairly one-sided. It was clear then that the Pacers were not operating at full strength; the loss of their last three starters still able to play will, I fear, gut the team.
Not that the team hasn’t already, it seems, been gutted of the one thing I consider most important: their integrity. The Pistons have had a long reputation as the NBA’s bad boys, with the Pacers often held up in contrast. Have those times come to an end? I would rather see the loss of players like Artest–and the accompanying game losses–than to see the home team of the most basketball-crazy state in the USA degrade so. Good players are easier to find than good reputations.