Posted on 02/07/2003 11:42:16 PM PST by Tall_Texan
ATLANTA -- They will give us Mariah Carey, Kool & the Gang, the Village People, along with Gladys Knight & the Pips.
About the only thing missing from the circus that has become the NBA All-Star Weekend is a full-fledged freak show.
Which is why they should let Mike Tyson throw up the ball for the opening tip Sunday night on TNT.
After all, in a year when one of the main features is supposed to be a salute to His Airness, wouldn't it be as appropriate to have a visit by His Earness?
Through the first three-plus months of the season, about the only case of misbehavior we haven't seen is someone biting an appendage.
There have been rants and raves. There have been TV cameras smashed and cultural sensitivities trashed. There have been threats made at referees, even physical contact with referees.
There have been charges of conspiracy thrown out and two charging head coaches suspended.
There was a time not long ago when worldwide audiences were simply mad about the NBA. Now the NBA is rapidly turning into a league gone mad.
This has become an angry place, where the slam dunkers who can fly so high are getting crowded out by the head cases who are so quick to fly off the handle.
Nobody can shoot the basketball, but everybody can shoot off his mouth.
The head inmate, among those who have taken over the asylum is, of course, Rasheed Wallace of Portland, the poster boy for incivility. Having long ago established himself as the pre-eminent practitioner of acquiring technical fouls during games, he was recently suspended seven games for confronting referee Tim Donaghy in a hallway of the Rose Garden, long after the final horn.
Wallace cocked his first and shouted threatening profanities at the referee: "You better flinch, you ... punk. I am going to kick your ... (butt)."
Wallace and his teammates were on the receiving end of the abuse earlier in the season when Golden State's Chris Mills used his car to block the path of the Trail Blazers' team bus as it tried to exit the arena in Oakland. Mills and his brother demanded that Portland's Bonzi Wells disembark to finish a fight that had begun on the court.
Meanwhile Wells also has been accused several times of taunting white players on the court with racial slurs.
Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers held a news conference in which he said he was far from the scary character that he'd been portrayed in the media. He said he was likable.
This all came just a couple of days after Artest drew a four-game suspension as the result of a cursing confrontation with Miami coach Pat Riley and then making obscene gestures to the crowd as he left the floor.
That was Artest's second suspension of this season, having previously been sat for destroying a $100,000 television camera and monitor in a fit of rage.
Pacers coach Isiah Thomas also was suspended for charging onto the floor to be something other than a peacemaker when Indiana's Al Harrington and Toronto's Morris Peterson started fighting. Thomas had to be restrained by Raptors coach Lenny Wilkens.
Are these just the products of the tense, frightened, brink-of-war times in which we live?
More likely, they are the predictable outgrowth of a disturbing trend where every dunk and every big basket is followed by howling and taunting and look-at-me gesticulations that are calculated to get the subject on that night's SportsCenter highlight reel. Call it the continued "ESPN-ing" of American sports.
"People see chest-pounding, then you see a guy you've never heard of before pounding on his chest," said NBA players union president Michael Curry. "It's bad for our image."
Or is it?
Soon after Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson was charged with carrying an illegal firearm, his jersey became the best seller in the NBA.
Yes, the NBA cultivates much of the thug image that is making a mockery -- if not a dangerous war zone -- of its game.
It is an era of talk shows filling the airwaves on radio and TV, of Internet sites wanting images that are bigger, louder, more attention-grabbing.
Shaquille O'Neal originally made his mocking remarks toward Yao Ming on Fox's Best Damn Sports Show Period. Then he became irate when his half-hearted apology was deemed insincere by many. Shaq's stepfather, Phillip Harrison, even showed up in Houston carrying a Christmas card that Yao had sent to Shaq, as if that proved something.
There is anger everywhere, on the floor and on the bench.
Riley has been fined twice this season for long, postgame rants about how the referees are treating his lowly Heat team differently because they are exacting a personnel vendetta against him.
Indeed, many referees have been pouring gasoline onto the fires. Ted Bernhardt called a technical foul against Orlando's Doc Rivers and then stood in his face, virtually challenging Rivers to react.
Where does it lead? How far does it go?
Just last week in Sacramento, when Utah coach Jerry Sloan thought the officials had missed one too many calls as the Kings' Doug Christie stepped out of bounds with the ball, he exploded in the face of referee Courtney Kirkland. Then shoved him, drawing a seven-game suspension.
Fights, tantrums, piques, rages, threats -- a perfect setting for Iron Mike to fit right in with the NBA stars.
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
These guys have Allen Iverson and Latrell Sprewell as role models.
Enjoy your All-Star weekend while these guys are still out on parole.
You mean guys with their own Hummer, their own attornies, their own classic jersey collection and still too young to buy a beer?
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