We Laker fans have seen it first hand...
Posted on 02/22/2007 6:51:46 AM PST by BenLurkin
An event planned to showcase what is right about professional basketball has been turned into a 72-hour display of why commissioner David Stern can't sleep at night and spends his days thinking of rules to mask what the NBA has come to represent.
Good luck fixing All-Star Weekend.
The game is a sloppy, boring, half-hearted mess. The dunk contest is contrived and pointless. The celebrity contest is unintended comedy. And, worst of all, All-Star Weekend revelers have transformed the league's midseason exhibition into the new millennium Freaknik, an out-of-control street party that features gunplay, violence, non-stop weed smoke and general mayhem.
Word of all the criminal activity that transpired during All-Star Weekend has been slowly leaking out on Las Vegas radio shows and TV newscasts and on Internet blogs the past 24 hours.
"It was filled with an element of violence," Teresa Frey, general manager for Coco's restaurant, told klastv.com. "They don't want to pay their bills. They don't want to respect us or each other."
Things got so bad that she closed the 24-hour restaurant from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
"I have been spit on. I have had food thrown at me," she said. "I have lost two servers out of fear. I have locked my door out of the fear of violence."
All weekend, people, especially cab drivers, gossiped about brawls and shootings. You didn't know what to believe because the local newspaper was filled with stories about what a raging success All-Star Weekend was. The city is desperately trying to attract an NBA franchise, and, I guess, there was no reason to let a few bloody bodies get in the way of a cozy relationship with Stern.
But there were multiple brawls, at least two shootings, more than 350 arrests and a lot of terror in Vegas over the weekend.
And the police might want to talk to NFL player Pacman Jones about a nasty shooting spree at a Vegas strip club. Jones and the rapper Nelly were allegedly at Minxx Gentlemen's Club Monday morning shortly before (or during) the shooting.
Two victims, male employees of the club, were listed in critical condition at the hospital; a third, a female patron, sustained non-life threatening injuries after being grazed by a bullet.
There were so many fights and so many gangbangers and one parking-lot shootout at the MGM Grand that people literally fled the hotel in fear for their safety. I talked with a woman who moved from the MGM to the Luxor because "I couldn't take it. I'll never come back to another All-Star Game."
There are reports of a brawl between rappers and police at the Wynn Hotel.
Vegas police were simply overwhelmed along The Strip. They were there solely for decoration and to discourage major crimes. Beyond that, they minded their own business.
I was there. Walking The Strip this weekend must be what it feels like to walk the yard at a maximum security prison. You couldn't relax. You avoided eye contact. The heavy police presence only reminded you of the danger.
Without a full-scale military occupation, New Orleans will not survive All-Star Weekend 2008.
David Stern seriously needs to consider moving the event out of the country for the next couple of years in hopes that young, hip-hop hoodlums would find another event to terrorize. Taking the game to Canada won't do it. The game needs to be moved overseas, someplace where the Bloods and Crips and hookers and hoes can't get to it without a passport and plane ticket.
Most Popular Sports Stories Wade Injured in Heat's LossTwo Pacers Indicted in FightTiger, Lefty Win in Match PlayCarter Shines, Kidd FlopsWizards' 'Mr. Fifty' Is YouTube HitI'm serious. Stern has spent the past three years trying to move his league and players past the thug image Ron Artest's fan brawl stamped on the NBA.
After this weekend, I'm convinced he's losing the battle. All-Star Weekend Vegas screamed that the NBA is aligned too closely with thugs. Stern is going to have to take drastic measures to break that perception/reality. All-Star Weekend can no longer remain the Woodstock for parolees, wannabe rap artists and baby's mamas on tax-refund vacations.
This was not a byproduct of the game being held in Vegas. All-Star Weekend has been on this path for the past five or six years. Every year the event becomes more and more a destination for troublemakers.
If something isn't done, next year's All-Star Weekend will surpass the deceased Freaknik, a weekend-long party in Atlanta, in terms of lawlessness. Wide-spread looting and a rape killed the Freaknik in 1999.
The NBA's image cannot survive bedlam in the French Quarter. And I'm not sure it can survive the embarrassment of a New Orleans standoff between its fans and the National Guard, either.
If Stern wants to continue to strengthen the international appeal of his game, he has the perfect excuse to move the All-Star Game to Germany, China, England or anywhere Suge Knight's posse can't find it.
Move the All-Star-Weekend to Zimbabwe.
We Laker fans have seen it first hand...
Ooops!
REPORT: PACMAN JONES SEEN PUNCHING STRIPPER, BITING BOUNCER IN STRIP CLUB SURVEILLANCE VIDEO: Steve Cofield reports on Sporting News Radio today that video cameras inside the Las Vegas strip club Minxx recorded NFL player Pacman Jones "punching a girl (stripper)" and "doing the biting (of bouncer Aaron Cudworth)."
Pacman Jones Strip Club Shooting Las Vegas NBA All-Star Game
The LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL reports that during a scuffle with Cudworth, Jones had stiches ripped out from recent shoulder surgery.
Cofield reports that after that initial confrontation, Jones bit Cudworth (Las Vegas Police later swabbed Cudworth for evidence of Jones' DNA), threatened to kill him ("I will kill you"), and told his posse "smoke his ass".
Cudworth was later shot by an alleged associate of Jones. As was a security guard (now paralyzed) and female customer.
ALSO SEE:
Pacman Accused Of Lying About Strip Club Shootout DNA From Bite Sought
Pacman Jones Lawyers Says Nelly To Blame For Starting Strip Club Fracas
Bite Marks On Gunshot Victim At Las Vegas Strip Club May Belong To Pacman Jones
http://sportsbybrooks.com/sporting-news-radio-reports-pacman-jones-strip-club-altercation-caught-on-video-12303.php
"Move the All-Star-Weekend to Zimbabwe."
Abolish the weekend all together. The nba also. Screw them.
I second that suggestion!
Who would name their kid "Pacman"?
Feb. 1, 2007, 4:10PM
Judge dismisses assault charge against Titans cornerback
Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An assault charge against Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones was dropped Thursday because a judge ruled there were too many inconsistencies in the testimony of a woman who claimed Jones spit on her at a Nashville night club.
Jones was accused of spitting in a woman's face after an argument at Club Mystic on Oct. 26.
Judge John Aaron Holt said Krystal Webb gave inconsistent testimony about when she noticed there was spit in her hair and wiped it off, and about when she knew Jones' identity.
The judge told Webb that she could still pursue the case in a civil lawsuit. Webb and her lawyer declined to speak to reporters after the ruling.
"She'll have a real hard time winning the civil suit if she didn't win this case right here," said Jones, who hadn't spoken to reporters since October. "For the most part, she asked me for $50,000. I wasn't going to give $50,000."
Jones wasn't allowed to play in one game Nov. 5 as punishment for the incident, and the NFL fined him $100,000. But Jones said he hopes to get that money back now that the charge has been dismissed.
After the ruling, Jones said he needs to protect himself from people who are trying to get money from him.
"I'm just happy it's over with and the truth always comes to the end," he said. "Everybody wants something out of my situation."
Jones was also charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct last August when he got into an argument with a woman at a night club in Murfreesboro. Those charges will be dismissed if he stays out of trouble for six months.
"I really have to watch where I go," he said. "Maybe I'll chill out at a jazz bar somewhere with some older folks."
I'm thinking that the nickname was acquired later in life.
Hmmmm....does he eat everything in sight, like in the old Pacman video game?
A local radio announcer read Whitlock's column this morning. I understood him to say "baby mamas" (which I interpreted to mean "teenage girls who have already given birth"), but I see that it's "baby's mamas." I'm not sure what this could mean -- the rapper's girlfriend he has already impregnated?
One of the greatest NFL nicknames ever 'Pac Man' Jones.
You know, if we call FEMA now, they may make it there in time for the mop up. And Congressman William Jefferson can clear out the old ice box a little early with this much warning.
I'm not even sure that Robert Mugabe would want to be associated with the NBA!
Looks like a pattern. He likes to spit on women. What a guy! (I hope I don't need the /s here)
LOL - you could be right. Even Mugabe has standards!
Watching the thugs in the NBA makes ME start to root for the Serbians for once.
Basketball is the world's greatest sport. Stern's NBA is the worst managed sports league in history. My solution is to concentrate on America's top sporting event - College basketball and March Madness.
Hopefully one day soon, we'll have an alternative pro basketball league that emphasizes the sport itself and sanity. That would provide a fitting venue for the NBA players like Tim Duncan who are still team players and not overaged adolecents.
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