[Smogger]

Do you not agree at least that the second punch on fatboy, by was it Jackson, where he sort of slid in and decked the guy a little over the top?

A little? That was definately over the top. I thought the chair toss that hit the old guy was outragous too.

[SoCal Pubbie]

This whole incident is just road rage writ large. I can understand telling the players in private that it was understandable, but having any figure of authority, be it the teams, the NBA, or ESPN publicly stating that it's okay to attack someone, even if they have come into the filed of play, is crazy. They are inviting a repeat where someone gets killed.

What if one of the fans had a knife and really went Vibe Awards on Artest? What if a bow struck a fan and he broke his neck in the fall, or a young child got knocked off the edge of a row of seats and fell thirty feet? What if Artest wrongly attacked a fan who happened to have a black belt and he ducked from the blow, extended Artest's right arm, smashed into his elbow with a rigid palm, and snapped his arm? The whole thing is crazy. We gotta show some restraint and get over the culture of "disrespect".