SURPRISED that brawls and fistfights have resurfaced in the NBA?
The league is barely a week old and already, two scuffles have marred the world’s No. 1 basketball tournament.
One unsightly skirmish involved certified stars.
Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram of the Los Angeles Lakers were ejected for a melee also involving Rocket Chris Paul in the Laker-Rocket game.
The Sunday (PHL time) ruckus caused the banishment of the punch-throwing trio.
Rondo and Paul are marquee players and so, why can’t they control their tempers? Isn’t it about time they behaved as their storied careers should by now have cemented their niche in the sport? Role models now to aspiring wannabes, to say the least?
Look at Ingram. He is only 21 if I’m not mistaken. Already, he’s got a hot head.
I just hope he will learn the ropes quick, not only in dealing with impending fame but, more importantly, with the jarring physicality in almost every NBA game.
The Lakers lost for the second time after bowing to Portland, but their biggest catch for the season, LeBron James, showed a class act in pacification during the fight-marred match.
He didn’t throw a punch amid the banging of bodies and trading of punches.
Instead, he threw his arms around Chris Paul, immobilizing the maddened Rocket guard before literally carrying out of the fray—out of harm’s way.
And Paul isn’t James’s teammate.
Did I hear lusty cheers from the 19,000 spectators that packed the Staples Center heaped on James?
That should easily merit James a sportsmanship trophy, if not a Nobel Peace prize.
While “basket brawls” in any loop are almost unstoppable due to the physical nature of the game, fist fights or a mere slight nudge that might hurt a player should still be a no-no all the time.
Even as Robert Jaworski has famously said that if you don’t want to get hurt, “Play chess instead of basketball,” still that shouldn’t give a player the license to inflict any form of hurtful act during a game.
Said Ramon Uy: “Basketball is a job. You can lose it with one flash of madness.”
Playing tough is fine, hurting is another.