Kevin McHale as Ron Artest before Ron Artest

On November 19, 2004, at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Pistons fan John Green threw a cup of Diet Coke at Ron Artest. (It figures that such a bush league move would have been perpetrated by a man drinking a diet soda.) The cup hit Artest in the chest. Artest responded by rushing into the stands, thereby sparking what is probably the most infamous brawl in NBA history.

Afterward, David Stern issued the following statement:

The events at last night’s game were shocking, repulsive and inexcusable -- a humiliation for everyone associated with the NBA. This demonstrates why our players must not enter the stands whatever the provocation or poisonous behavior of people attending the games. Our investigation is ongoing and I expect it to be completed by tomorrow evening.

The NBA has taken the following actions, effective immediately:

1. Indiana players Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal are suspended indefinitely, the length to be determined upon completion of the investigation.

2. Detroit player Ben Wallace is suspended indefinitely, the length to be determined upon completion of the investigation.

3. Review of rules and procedures relating to altercations and security have been undertaken so that fans can continue to attend our games unthreatened by events such as the ones that occurred last night.

The final talley was 146 games worth of suspensions (86 for Artest), which cost the players more than $11 million in salary (almost $5 million for Artest). The brawl -- which was lovingly nicknamed "The Malice at The Palace" -- went on to provide NBA experts and fans with the ultimate example of players behaving badly.

And yet...this stuff used to happen without setting off a complete media firestorm. Last February, I posted about how Cedric "Cornbread" Maxwell once went after a fan during Game 6 of one of the greatest playoff series of all time. Maxwell was fined $2,500 but didn't get suspended for a single game. He wasn't even ejected from that game.

Want another example you've probably never heard about? Of course you do.

On May 8, 1987, Kevin McHale -- with less than a half-minute left in overtime of Game 3 of the Bucks-Celtics semifinal playoff series -- charged into the Milwaukee crowd and confronted a courtside spectator. In full view of Oprah Winfrey no less! And by "confronted" I mean he grabbed the dude by his tie, after which the cream puff fell down. Then a ruckus ensued.

Here's the video. The action starts around the 20-second mark:


Surprisingly enough, the world did not wobble off its axis and fall into the sun. There were no earthquakes or natural disasters. Fans didn't freak out and the media didn't go berserk with 24/7 coverage of McHale's brutal attack. And McHale wasn't suspended. He played in Game 4 -- in the same arena, in front of the same fans -- and the Celtics won 138-137. Yes, that was the actual score.

On May 9, 1987, this was how the Boston Globe described the incident:

The fight began with 24 seconds left in overtime. The Bucks, who had blown a chance to win the game in regulation time, had climbed back to a 121-118 lead. McHale had fouled out by whacking the Bucks' Paul Pressey. The crowd had hooted because McHale is not exactly a favorite here, being viewed as a man who is accorded great basketball freedom by the referees while local tall timbers Jack Sikma, Paul Mokeski and Randy Breuer are called for simple jawalking and littering.

Upon reaching the bench, McHale was heckled by the familiar heckler.

"I'd been hearing him all game," McHale said. "He'd been cursing and cursing and cursing. Usually. I'm playing most of the game here, so I never hear the guy. Tonight I was on the bench and the guy would not shut up.

"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr...how much are you going to take?"

Enough was enough and McHale stepped over the low seats that serve as the Boston bench and confronted the heckler. The trouble broke out like chicken pox. Fred Roberts was over the bench and equipment guy Joe Quatato was over and the rest of the Celtics followed. The heckler wound up lying on the gaily- painted Mecca floor wiyh a security guard's foot on his neck. The crowd wound up in a dither.

"It wasn't exactly the smartest thing I've ever did, but how much are you going to take?" McHale said. "Awww, in hockey they wouldn't even notice something like this."

And, in all honesty, "they" -- meaning the world at large -- barely took notice of this incident. Relatively speaking. Only McHale didn't realize it at the time.

The following story didn't run until the May 10 edition of the Boston Globe, almost two days after the incident:

MILWAUKEE - The morning newspapers had the pictures and they were something to see. Here was Boston Celtics forward Kevin McHale and there was assistant coach Jimmy Rodgers and here were the rest of the players on the Celtics bench and there were the policemen and...funny.

Twelve hours later the craziness of Friday night mostly seemed funny.

"My wife called me early," McHale said yesterday morning as he sat a few feet from the spot where the grand hoo-ha had happened in the closing moments of the Celtics' 126-121 overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

"The first thing she wanted to know was how much this was going to cost. I told her, 'Do you know that fishing boat I want to buy this summer? I think we'll be buying two of them, only one will be for the NBA office.' "

Funny.

Passion became slapstick in the morning sunlight. What did Kevin McHale do with 24 seconds left in the game? He stepped over the Celtics bench and collared some heckler who had been blabbing obscenities for the entire night? He grabbed the guy and then other people grabbed other people and suddenly there was this full-scale dance on the designer-patterned Mecca floor? The logic of the moment somehow had been transformed into the punch line of today. Clint Eastwood became Joe Piscopo.

"I was really mad," McHale said. "The guy was just saying terrible things. The security people told me that Moses Malone and Tree Rollins both had gone after him earlier this year. He's sitting there and he has a 4-year-old kid next to him and he's just saying the rottenest swear words and I just went for him.

"As soon as I did, the guy just got the weasliest look on his face, though. It's like if you're going to slap a kid and he gets that look of terror on his face and you just stop. I just wanted to turn around and go back to the bench, but by that time of course it was too late. All kinds of people were involved."

Funny.

"I just saw Kevin going in there and I went to pull him back," coach K.C. Jones said. "By the time I got there, though, everybody was grabbing everybody."

"Oprah Winfrey was sitting about four rows from where the whole thing happened," equipment assistant Joe Quatato said. "She was watching the game with her boyfriend. Maybe Kevin was just going back to meet Oprah Winfrey."

Oprah Winfrey? Funny.

The bench collapsed. The original big mouth found himself wrestled to the floor by security people, his face pressed against the three-point line as someone kept a foot on his neck. Someone said the guy simply was pulled there by his yellow necktie. Whomp. The beer began to fly. Forward Fred Roberts seemed to be looking for certain antagonists.

The entire scene resembled the finish of one of those movies -- "Animal House" and "Revenge of the Nerds" come to mind -- that have all the characters involved in some wacky finale, custard pies everywhere. What next?

"I've been going to the Bruins' training room every day for treatments since I hurt my ankle," McHale said. "Maybe that's what did it. I sat next to Nevin Markwart and his spirit took over. Don Warden, the therapist, was saying the other day that when the hockey players have fights, even if the guy gets killed, blood all over his face, everyone will say to him in the locker room, 'How to mix it up in there.' I was going to give Don a call today and see if he'd say it to me."

Funny.

McHale said he was reminded of the time the Bruins climbed into the stands at Madison Square Garden. Remember that? Remember one of the Bruins whomping at the guy with the guy's own shoe? Wasn't Brad Park doing the whomping?

"I don't think so," a reporter said. "I think it was Mike Milbury."

"Milbury!" McHale said. "I was talking with him just the other day in the trainer's room. Maybe that was it."

The craziest part of all is that the characters in Friday night's production will be brought back to the same place this afternoon at 1 o'clock. The Celtics...the Bucks...the mascot, "Bango The Buck"...the band with Ricky Pierce's wife as vocalist...McHale...the crowd.

Most of the crowd.

"The security guards told me they won't let the guy back in that seat today," Kevin McHale said. "He'll be back next year, though, and that's the one thing that bugs me. I'll be paying a fine and he'll be back yelling at people next year and someone probably will pop him and the guy will sue. It's not right."

And that was it. I couldn't track down any other significant details about this incident. Hell, I never even found out how much McHale was fined (or if he was). At that point, the incident basically disappeared from living memory. What's more, I watched that game live and didn't even remember McHale going after that fan until I ran across the YouTube video during an unrelated search.

Mind you, this incident was pretty high profile for the time. The Celtics were the defending champs, and McHale had played so well that season he finished fourth in MVP voting (behind Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird). And this was the playoffs! It's a pretty safe bet the entire NBA world was watching that game.

The incident happened, it passed quickly and everybody survived. End of story.

Shouldn't it still be that way? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that players should be allowed to go after fans. That's definitely not okay. But the level of freakout that happens in reaction to these incidents has gotten entirely out of hand. And that probably includes me. For instance, I get pretty heated when somebody like Dwight Howard maims somebody with an elbow when I should probably just say, "Wow, what a douchebag," and move on.

I wonder: What's the appropriate amount of attention and concern that should be given to events like these? Was there too little in the 1980s? Is there too much now?

The Pickup Diaries Part 2: Learning the Game

Once I discovered the joys of shooting a basketball, the rest of the summer after my sophomore year in high school was a blur of balling, working out, and bussing tables at the Ponderosa. And even though I didn't love working at the 'Rosa as much as I enjoyed the other two activities, it was a means to an end. Namely, my first car: A 1978 Plymouth Fury.

Cherry red and roughly the size of a small ocean liner, the Fury -- which I named "The Red Baron" -- was a one-way ticket to freedom. I could now go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. You know, as long as my mom was cool with it and it was before curfew.

I purchased the Fury on a Friday night in early July. If I recall correctly, it cost around $800, which seemed both like a small fortune and a ridiculously tiny price to pay for virtual independence. The bad news: I didn't have my license yet. I had actually failed my first driver's test a couple weeks prior.

This still pisses me off. I was kicking ass on the test and then, at the very end, right outside the DMV, the woman administering the test asked me to parallel park. I nailed that too, and I naturally assumed I'd passed with flying colors. However, she failed me. When I asked why, she said it was because, while turning left onto Markland Avenue -- one of the main streets in Kokomo -- my left tire had passed ever-so-slightly through the opposite lane and cut over the front edge of the yellow line separating the two sides of the street.

"If there had been a car there, you would have hit it," she said.

"But there wasn't a car there," I replied.

"True, but there could have been."

"But...but...people do that all the time," I said.

"Yes, but new drivers shouldn't," she answered. "I think having to retake the test will break you of that bad habit, don't you?"

Seriously, I could have choked a bitch.

The Tuesday after buying the Fury, I went in to retake my test. I got the same instructor, and yes, she remembered me. She literally had me drive a circle around the DMV and passed me.

"I trust you learned your lesson?" she said.

The only lesson my 16-year-old self learned was that people in a position of power can and probably will screw with you. But at least I was now a licensed driver.

Now, I had taken the test in my mom's car -- a 1987 Buick Somerset -- because it was much smaller than the Fury and therefore easier to drive under testing conditions (that is, if I needed to parallel park again). When I got home, the first thing I did was jump into the Fury. Jammed in the key. Turned the ignition.

Nothing but a dry cough-like sound.

See, on Friday night, shortly after getting my new car home, my buddy Greg had come over and -- since I couldn't actually drive us anywhere yet -- we had spent the night sitting in the car listening to the tape deck...which was wired directly to the battery. That meant the radio could be on and running even when the key wasn't in the ignition. Sure enough, I'd left it running and the battery was now deader than Shaq's bathroom scale. Dead and so old, in fact, that jumping it only blew a little rust off the connectors.

One battery replacement later, I was finally on the road.

But I wasn't taking too many joy rides. Not at first anyway. About the only places I drove to were my friends' houses -- it kind of rankled them at first that I wouldn't drive us to the mall or the local cruising strip -- and my "home court." This was a little basketball court behind Boulevard School, my old elementary school, which just so happened to be about two blocks away from my high school, Kokomo High School.

The Boulevard court had some definite downsides. The backboards were made of the creakiest wood imaginable, and the rims were composed of the clangiest iron in the known universe. The blacktop surface of the court was covered in dead spots and shallow, nearly imperceptible depressions that tended to collect water. Oh, and it was surrounded on three sides by nothing but corn fields. This meant that a) there was no protection from the burning summer sun (so I often had no choice but to shoot toward the sun from one angle or another) and b) there was no protection from the wind.

And, if you've ever played outdoors, you know the wind can be a real problem.

That said, the Boulevard court was also relatively private. Nobody liked to play there for the reasons outlined above and the fact that there was no three-point line. As a result, I could practice for hours upon end without being interrupted or even seen. And I was definitely in Learning the Game mode. And for that, I wanted privacy.

Since I didn't have any actual coaching, I decided to make Larry Bird my coach. I re-read Bird's autobiography, Drive. I re-watched Larry Bird: A Basketball Legend as well as every old Celtics game I had on tape. I went to Kokomo's only major bookstore -- Walden Books -- and found a copy of Bird's instructional manual Bird on Basketball: How-to Strategies From The Great Celtics Champion. (Still available used from Amazon.com!)

I read. I watched. I read and watched some more. I digested. And then I tried to incorporate Bird's concepts into my budding game.

Which brings us to...

The Pickup Rules

In case you haven't seen Zombieland yet -- and I highly encourage you to do so immediately if you haven't -- the main character, Columbus, is a painfully awkward nerd who managed to survive the zombie apocalypse by strictly adhering to a series of zombie-specific survival rules. For instance:

Kickass indeed.
But long before Jesse Eisenberg was unintentionally (one assumes) fooling people into thinking he was Michael Cera -- they're entirely different people, I swear -- I was inventing the rules necessary for my survival in pickup basketball. I will be describing these rules throughout The Pickup Diaries.

Now...despite his reputation as a fearsome outside shooter, Bird's arsenal also included a wide variety of drives, dunks, layups, hooks and scoops. He also had some killer low post moves. That's why his career field goal percentage was just a shade under .500, and he probably would have finished above .500 if he hadn't limped through his final four seasons with bad back.

Just for kicks, here's Bird beating the Portland Trail Blazers left-handed. I'm not kidding. You might have heard or read about this one: Bird told teammates beforehand that being so great was boring him...and he he vowed to shoot left-handed all game. He didn't, but Bird still ending up scoring 22 of his 47 points using his left hand. I know. Awesome.


At any rate, Bird's shooting philosophy became the basis for my very first rule regarding pickup hoops:

Pickup Rule #1: Always take the highest percentage shot available.

Sounds obvious, right? So simple...but so very hard. I mean, you'd think everybody would do this. But take LeBron James and Kobe Bryant for example. They're probably the two best basketball players in the NBA, but they take an unbelievable number of crap shots. At times, it seems like they're stuck in permanent heat check mode. And they aren't alone. Lesser players do it (think Monta Ellis). Hell, even lousy players do it (for further reading, please refer to the collected works of Hughes, Larry).

Mind you, Bird wasn't without sin. He had the blood of a hundred bastard field goal attempts on his mangled hands. But in general, Bird tried to always get -- for himself or his teammates -- the highest percentage shot available. And for Larry Legend, that meant close to the hoop.

When Bird retired, he was perhaps the greatest three-point shooter in league history. Even today, he's considered the one of the all-time greats, in part due to his dramatic victories in the NBA's first three Long Distance Shootouts (1986, 1987 and 1988).

But in many ways, Larry hated the three and decried its use. This was because a) he felt it was a low percentage shot (which it is) and b) that if a team had a two-point lead at the end of the game, that team should never lose to a last-second shot. Which is kind of ironic, considering Bird won several games on last-second treys during his career.

However, despite this slight contradiction in philosophy and behavior, Bird's word was Basketball Law to me. For this reason, I never practiced threes. Never even attempted them while goofing around. To me, it was a waste of time that could be spent practicing shots I could actually use in a game. (For this same reason, I've never attempted a half court shot or developed any trick shots for HORSE, unless you consider a three-pointer from NBA range to be a trick shot.)

Therefore, all my shots were attempted from 15 feet and in. After all, I had almost grown to my full height of 6'3" -- I've often wondered whether I would have grown even taller had I not spent much of my childhood malnourished -- which made me a "big man" in pickup basketball terms. This meant that my game should be close to and going toward the basket.

I worked on every variety of layup I could think of. (Although it was quite a while before I realized the value of trying to develop my left hand...in fact, I'm still working on that.) I used my mental chalk to draw a 15-foot arc around the hoop and practiced shots from every angle. (However, due to dead spots and funky rims, I often avoided baseline shots, which would haunt me later.) And I worked on my inside moves.

Fortunately, I was a natural in the post due to decent footwork, a long wingspan (or, as my college roommate BadDave called them, my Gorilla Arms), and a soft touch. Plus, I had spent my formative years following the Bird-era Celtics. This meant hours upon hours of watch Kevin McHale put opponents into his torture chamber.


McHale -- yes, my last name is also McHale, no Kevin and I are not related -- had a seemingly endless array of low post moves. This wasn't exactly true. He had a set number of moves, but the moves had so many subtle variations that they seemed endless. These moves are actually described in stunning detail in The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons, which makes the book a must-read for anybody who wants to became a killer post player in pickup ball.

And that was my life for the next two months. Endless, tireless practice. I practiced in the morning, the afternoon, and at night. I played in the sun, the wind, and in the rain. By the end of that period, I was knocking down a fairly high percentage of my shots, which made me feel pretty good about myself. After all, I had only just picked up the sport.

What I didn't (and couldn't) understand at the time was this: A large part of my early "success" was due to the fact that I had focused on a very specific and therefore very limited number of shots. Not to mention that every shot had been attempted against no defense. But these things don't matter when you don't know any better. I was confident. A little cocky even. And with the new school year fast approaching...

...it was time to take my game on the road.

Bawful After Dark: Game 7 Edition

Ah, seeing this picture makes me feel better
(via Andy Gray's SI Vault)
Oh, this is such a great time. NBA Finals Game 7 is tonight, and even if I get my heart broken, I can still look forward to both the rest of the weekend's coverage of the US Open at Pebble Beach, plus I'm going on vacation next week. When I tune into the game tonight, I'll be disappointed (as I always am) when I hear the generic as hell music ABC is using for its "ESPN on ABC" coverage of the NBA. I still naturally long for the NBA on NBC music (Otherwise known as proof that Hell has frozen over at least once in the past, since John Tesh wrote an amazing piece of music). I always got excited just from watching the brief 30 second intro to the game coverage, like this one from the '98 Finals. But at least we don't have to listen to this. (h/t Chris) Meanwhile, in another link passed along by Chris, ESPN's Page 2 is celebrating the end of professional basketball in Louisville, so now I'm just really emotionally confused.

NBA trade news: Dalembert is off to Sacramento. In exchange, the Kings Purple Paupers will give up Andres Nocioni and Spencer Hawes. The big key to this trade was excellently described by Sorbo: "Phili's in official rebuilding mode. How's this 2010/2011 line-up for the Sixers: Holiday, Iguodala, Nocioni, Brand, and Speights. Good thing you have baseball and hockey, Phili fans." Here's to hoping the draft treats both of these teams kindly (or fails miserably and gives us a lot of material. Either or.)

Good news everyone! Here is your latest NBA Jam for Wii update: NBA Legends characters! Yes, you will be able to play this old school style game with some old school style players if you so desire. Though I'm not sure why you'd want to play as Kevin McHale. It's not like you can actually take advantage of his sweet post moves in this game.

As posted on Deadspin, you absolutely need to behold this piece of NBA apparel -- a chinchilla fur jacket covered with crocodile skin NBA logos. I'm not really sure exactly who is the target market for such an item, but considering it's size XXL, that sort of limits the choices. If it was available in XXXL, Shaq would totally wear one.

You may remember the Name of the Year brackets that started right around the same time as March Madness. As of this month, they have finally named the winner... and the final two choices were kind of a letdown in my opinion. The strongest names in the field got voted out by some remarkably dull ones. (I was rooting for Nohjay Nimpson, God's Power Offor, and Spontaneous Gordon.)

Some brief Footbawful: a Tim Tebow statue? Really? There aren't enough facepalm pictures on the Internet...

And finally, here's a random awful jersey.

Worst of Game 6 in Pictures:

(Insert your favorite tasteless Colorado joke here)

"And STAY down!"

The sense of failure was just too strong, and Tony Allen finally snapped

I can't decide which is worse - Jack's gesture, or that ridiculous facial hair

Apparently Maria Menounos just now realized that actually is collosal douchebag Dane Cook

This is Christina Aguilera's cleavage. You're welcome.
NBA Finals - Game 7:
Celtics at Lakers - ABC, 9:00pm
Series tied 3-3

Can't type... Too nervous... Ugh... I will simply link my fellow Celtics fans to this reassuring post from Jonah Keri (which also features the McHale/Rambis clothesline picture I already had chosen to lead today's BAD post!) that gives us some historical proof that the Celtics still have a shot. ("So you're telling me there's a chance... Yeah!")