I can understand getting tangled up and lashing out, but Harden wasn't anywhere near him on the layup and he cocked his arm back and hit him in the back of the head. The NBA has no balls though, so they'll find him 45k and suspend him for 2 games.
It's going to be WAY more severe than that, dude. I have always liked Artest and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt here, but watching the video, that was a blatant cheap shot. Honestly, I wouldn't mind a 10 game suspension and $150k fine, especially considering Artest's history of unnecessary fouls on opposing players. It's the dirtiest play I have seen in the NBA since Bynum's career-threatening hit on Jose Juan Barea in the playoffs last year. (Coincidentally, another Laker) Hopefully, Harden is okay and hasn't suffered a concussion. Not only is he the third or fourth best player on a serious title contender, but he has the most awesome facial hair in basketball.
I don't know. I'm actually kinda inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here. I hate the Lakers, and have no particular fondness for Artest but he's literally not even looking at Harden. On the other hand, it does have the appearance of a windup. I'm probably being way too generous here, but it doesn't seem ridiculous to me on replay that it was inadvertent.
Artest is definitely winding up there, and begins doing so as soon as Harden bumps into him. He might have been caught up in the emotion of the dunk, but that's no excuse. Artest fucking leveled an opposing player with an elbow to the head with all his strength behind it. To be completely honest, I think Artest charging into the stands at Detroit in 2004 was WAY more defensible than this. There, he had just received an exceptionally hard shot to the face from a pissed-off Ben Wallace (nowadays, easily a flagrant-2) and was trying to cool off on the scorer's table when he got pelted with a cup of beer. I might have gone berserk there, too. Here? Artest dunks, gets mildly contacted by a Harden who was running back, and fucking swings at him as hard as he can with an elbow to the head, leaving him unconscious. Everyone talks about Karl Malone's insane elbows back in the day, where he would jump up and land with his elbow crashing down on someone's head. (He left Isiah Thomas with a concussion, a few dozen stitches, and serious injury) And as much as I love the Mailman, I agree those types of blows should receive 10+ game suspensions. But none of those were as bad or as blatant as what Artest did. Malone never wound up with his full strength or hit someone on a dead ball. I generally believe Stern goes overboard on suspensions and flagrants nowadays, but if ever there was a play that deserved a harsh punishment, that was it.
"it's unfortunate Harden had to get elbowed in the head." Really? That's the best he could come up with? And I am all for a harsh punishment. Fines should be % of salary, not a set amount. 6 figure minimum (unless its uniform violation or something ridiculous). And you should be required to sit out 2x as many games as the guy you hurt.
As they talked about on NBA Countdown after the game, that was 100% intentional. It was obvious because he kept walking. If you hit a guy and didn't mean it, you would walk back and see if he's okay. You also wouldn't respond to RW running up to you in your face with a "Oh you want some too?" engagement. He should get at least 5 games because that is what Bynum got. And Harden did not return to the game with a concussion. Not saying it was Harden's fault, but players gotta stop doing that after play bump-in to the other team shit they always do.
Previous PM | Next PM Message subject: Re: The Association 2012 From: Gator Sent: Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:01 am To: Parker Message Subject: The Association 2012 Parker wrote: As they talked about on NBA Countdown after the game, that was 100% intentional. It was obvious because he kept walking. If you hit a guy and didn't mean it, you would walk back and see if he's okay. You also wouldn't respond to RW running up to you in your face with a "Oh you want some too?" engagement. He should get at least 5 games because that is what Bynum got. And Harden did not return to the game with a concussion. Not saying it was Harden's fault, but players gotta stop doing that after play bump-in to the other team shit they always do. You also dont cock your elbow and then swing it like that. That was NOT an incidental or accidental motion. I didnt even see it like that. I will have to watch the replays again. It looked like Harden was just trying to get the ball out of bounds. I thought initially he was one of the guys defending on the layup, but he was no where near the play. There are too many guys that expect the seas to part when they drive to the basket (like Rose and Griffin). Like "how dare you try and interrupt my highlight with your defense". If youre gonna put your head down and barrel towards the rim hoping to get a foul, then expect to get knocked down and injured sometimes. I know Wade plays the same way, but I've never heard him whine about it.
This is just a shame. The guy was on the way up. But something is off in his head. He mentioned have a psychologist/therapist. More work needs to be done. The guy is chemically off-balanced. His track record isn't cool either. Oh well, he will get his punishment and move on. He didn't shoot anyone, didn't kill anyone, didn't clothesline anyone. It was a hard fucking hit. James Harden had some concussion like symptoms. The guy just needs help.
I havent seen the clip yet, but apparently Skip Bayless is saying that Harden deserved what he got. Not sure why. Maybe the bumping issue you talked about.
Or because Bayless is a contrarian douchebag and because people are pretty much equivocally stating that Artest was out of line and it was ridiculous, ol' Skip felt the need to weigh in exactly the opposite. Probably will back it up tomorrow with a story of how he once clotheslined a guy during JV ball for wearing his socks too high.
LEAVE MARY KATE AND ASHLEY OUT OF THIS!!!!! Yeah, Skip is doing his job, jumping on the other side. I still think the whole bumping into players after a play is stupid. The basketball court is big, you don't need the extra sweaty man on man contact.
The length of suspension is an interesting topic. In some ways, Artest's elbow was not as bad as Bynum's hit on JJ Barea in the play-offs last season. At the very least, Artest didn't jeopardize anyone's career. Bynum was suspended only 4 games. By that standard, Artest should only get 3-4 games. At the same time, that full power elbow was worse than virtually any punch or clothesline I have seen in NBA play. Most punches and clotheslines also don't result in the injured player getting a concussion and staying down for a minute on the court, either. Carmelo Anthony was suspended 15 games for his pussy punch of Mardy Collins, which didn't hurt or injure Collins in any way. By that standard, Artest should get 30+ games, easily. Again, I favor a harsher punishment on this one. If the NBA is going to take a stand on hard fouls and fighting, and has multi-game suspensions for far more minor things, (Carmelo getting 15 games for a weak punch in the middle of a 2 team brawl was ridiculous, and I don't even like Melo) they have to punish Artest severely.
The main issue is going to be intentions. No one can prove beyond all doubt that Artest meant to elbow him, whereas that was never up for debate with Anthony or Bynum. It's perhaps more severe than either action, but Artest will always be able to plead that it was an accident, and no one can definitively say it isn't true.
I think that the worst part of the whole thing was the look in his eye and his body language afterward. That wasn't the usual faux tough-guy posturing. It had a crazed, backed-into-a-corner look to it. The man appears to have some pretty serious mental health issues, and I wonder how safe it is to have him out there.
Since when has the league office based its punishment primarily on intentions? Also, this isn't a court of law. We've already been over why Artest's actions were likely intentional. A 1% chance existing that they were "accidental" is besides the point and won't make a difference for Stern. (Nor should it, in this case) I can bring up a thousand examples of suspensions where intentions didn't matter, but I think the point is clear enough. Again, Artest can plead whatever he wants. This is not a criminal trial. If Stern wants to punish him severely, he will. If he wants to punish him very leniently (as he did with Bynum), he will.
Weak. Who would have complained if Stern threw the book at him? I think it should have been indefinite considering Harden can't play and Artest is a repeat offender.
I'd disagree that an entire playoff series (and probably part of a second), is weak by any definition. It's amongst the highest suspensions ever given for on the court behavior in league history. I think it's the fifth highest ever that didn't involve the player attacking someone in the stands (Washington, Melo, JR Smith, Robinson), and I think most would agree that the Knicks-Nuggets suspensions were overly draconian. Anything under five would have been far too light given suspension history, and anything over 10 would have been anomalously high (I think we can agree that this is not worse than charging into the stands and fighting fans like Vernon Maxwell). What does look really weak by comparison is Kevin Love's two game suspension for going Ndamukong Suh on Luis Scola's face.
I disagree with your disagreement. Where they are in the season or playoffs should not have anything to do with suspension length. Artest shoulda thought about that before he concussed a guy. How many times has Love been fined or suspended before? That has a lot to do with it. And Love's stomp was a direct result of previous physical encounters between the 2. What Artest did was not in retaliation, it was virtually unprovoked. That and the total lack of remorse ("Sorry Harden had to get elbowed in the head...") warranted a much longer suspension. He swung his elbow so hard that it could have knocked Harden out for ALL the playoffs and even ended his career had it hit him in a different spot.