Another brawl????

[millamak]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2701228

This is the fallout from the brawl this weekend.  I saw some footage of it, but not a lot like I did the huge one with Artest.  It does seem wierd to me that the starters for Denver would be out on the court after New York had emptied its bench and given up.  I don't know the exact specifics, but the game was almost over when this flagrant foul happened that started the whole thing.  Denver has lost its best player for 15 games now.  Should be interesting to see if Denver can even win a game without Melo. 

[ClintusMaximus]

stern is a fag.

I'm a BIG Carmello Anthony fan, and I'm not going to defend him.  He shouldn't have thrown a punch.  It wasn't good.  However, let's look at the facts.... a punch in the NBA for the last, what, 10 years or so gets you a one game suspension.  He clearly lost his cool, threw a punch, then said, "this is dumb" and got out of there....

You punch a guy, you get a game, that's from WAY back... it's the precedent, it's not written anywhere, but it's how it is. 

I understand Stern wants to clean it up, but you can't be a nazi and just start making up suspensions on-the-fly, it's not fair.  Make some rules... 10 games for a punch, 5 for choking. 20 for multiple punches, whatever... then you have something to go by.  Don't just wing it and completely disregard history. 

My god, it's a fight... it happens in the NBA, in football, in baseball.  It's not the end of the world.  These are guys that are playing at a high intensity with big time emotions.... shiate happens.

If I was Melo I'd be appealing this and I'd mediator would see this isn't quite fair. 

[ClintusMaximus]

One more note on Denver's starters being out there... they have had big time problems closing out game, they JUST went on a big time run, and there were 3 nuggets at the scorers table waiting to check in.  Besides, who cares... keep your starters out there and work on what they want to work on.  Karl is notorious for leaving starts out on the floor and running different sets, defenses, etc, and points like this.

[millamak]

Well, maybe 15 is a little high.  But if the other players were given multiple game suspensions, what Melo did probably warranted double so I think 8-10 would be fine.  It wasn't so much that he hit a guy as it was that he just ran up and sucker punched the one dude.  I am sure he will appeal the suspension's length and maybe the mediator will knock it down a little, but regardless, this brawl was ugly.  I like your idea though of setting some guidelines for these altercations as you are right, they are going to happen from time to time. 

I understand that if you are having issues and you want to work on things, that is fine.  The Nuggets weren't out there working on sets and closing games, though.  They were out there cherry picking and embarassing the Knicks.  Besides, the Knicks had all second line guys out there and had clearly thrown in the towel.  The foul was bad and was hopefully a flagrant 2, but I don't necessary blame the Knick's player for doing it.  You just don't do that stuff, especially on someone else's court. 

[Pete]

they should chop off a finger, see if it ever happens again.

[Jeremy]

I'm a BIG Carmello Anthony fan, and I'm not going to defend him.  He shouldn't have thrown a punch.  It wasn't good.  However, let's look at the facts.... a punch in the NBA for the last, what, 10 years or so gets you a one game suspension.  He clearly lost his cool, threw a punch, then said, "this is dumb" and got out of there....

Thats the funniest thing ive ever read!  You meant to say that he threw a sucker punch at a guy who was being held back, then ran like a biatch!  The funny thing was that he was actually helping calm people down at first, then the wanna be thug nathanr in him took over. 

And he didnt just throw a punch.  He ESCALATED a situation that was calming down.  And its bullshit that these athletes can do this and face no legal consequences.  If you or i did what melo did to someone wed be in court for assault charges. 

You think 15 games is bad, artest got a year.  Didnt oneal or jackson get 15 games as well?