Sports players run off adrenaline. Sometimes, tempers flare. Physical manifestations of the frustrations players feel are not uncommon in such sports as hockey, rugby or even baseball. In hockey, there’s the few minutes of humiliation in the penalty box, equivalent to being sent to your room.
But when these problems happen in the basketball arena, public reaction is quite different. Take Saturday night’s game between the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks, a number of key players were suspended. Carmelo Anthony threw a punch, and he was ousted for 15 games.
The public outcry has been ridiculous. Northwest Airlines, as reported by Freakonomics, has pulled a story about Anthony from the cover of the December issue of “World Traveler.” The story was about the good he has done for his community. This statement came from the airline and was posted on CNBC.com:
“Following the NBA’s suspension of Mr. Anthony, several of his Denver Nugget teammates, and some members of the New York Knicks for fighting during last Saturday’s game, Northwest has elected to remove the publication from its planes.
“Northwest does not want to appear to condone in any way the behavior of some of the players during Saturday’s game, including Mr. Anthony, by continuing to offer the current edition of WorldTraveler. The story was developed long before this event occurred, and the publication was placed on Northwest aircraft on December 1.”
The online story was pulled, and the issues on the plane will be removed as well. Did they think people were going to stop buying plane tickets because they wrote about a guy that helps out his community?
Deadspin.com included footage of a baseball brawl between the Kansas City T-Bones and the Schaumberg Flyers about a week-and-a-half ago. Generally, this type of behavior is considered amusing to sportscasters and brushed aside.
But when it happens with basketball, it’s a much more serious infraction. (Even despite the face that after Anthony threw the punch he ran like a little girl.) Some speculation that this may be a racist issue has been raised. Or maybe the league is just a bit touchier than other sports leagues. Who knows.
But ever since the Pistons/Pacers brawl that involved crowd members and players and just got completely out of control, the league seemingly is primed to over react and squash any further uprisings. The importance of the image of the players may be taking precedence. This used to happen all the time, and suspension was commonly limited to two or three games.
Perhaps another difference is the proximity of the crowd to the players. In NHL or MLB games, there is more room to rumble. Are today’s NBA players really out of control, as they have been penned time and again? I don’t think so, we’re just all turning into a bunch of over-sensitive babies.
