Let’s imagine this.
You’re a young, impressionable fan in the winter of 2004 at about 13 years old. You’re checking out a game between 2 of the Eastern Conferences best teams, actually a Eastern Conference Finals rematch from the previous playoffs and one of the teams is the defending NBA Champions! The game is live and being televised on ESPN nation wide.
Coach Larry Brown faced off against Coach Rick Carlisle, both accomplished and well respected coaches in the NBA.
It’s the Indiana Pacers visiting the Detroit Pistons. Here’s how that game ended on that November 19th night back in 2004. ‘The Malice At The Palace’ ensued.
https://youtu.be/AxYwpVuX7HU
In what some would say is the most despicable and disgusting thing to happen in the NBA’s history, actually, should’ve never happened.
Detroit Pistons are down 15 with 45 seconds left and both teams starters are in the game. That’s the first cause for concern. Pistons still have starters Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton all still in the game along with sixth man Lindsay Hunter. Why coach Larry Brown? You’re down 15 with 45 seconds to go.
Then on the other hand, you can say the same thing about the Indiana Pacers. Jamal Tinsley, Ron Artest aka Metta World Peace and Stephen Jackson, all regular starters for the Pacers at that time were still in the game.
Take the players out, like you should being either up or down double digits with under a minute to go, and this issue never happens.
But it does, so lets continue the timeline.
Ben Wallace got the ball in the post and is fouled by Artest (Which is the name we will go with for this article). The foul wasn’t hard, at all and ‘Big Ben’ Wallace can assuredly take any and all hits he may get during a game but on this night, Wallace had enough. Ron Artest is notoriously a player that gets on everyone’s nerves. From his weird antics to his somewhat cocky demeanor, no matter where Artest went, whether it was with the Bulls, Pacers, Kings, Rockets, Lakers or Knicks, he’s always been a thorn in some players sides.
Artest is annoying to most. But you have to love it. You have to love the intensity and passion Artest played with in his time in the NBA.
Now Artest did commit the foul, Wallace took it to the next level and shoved Ron Artest, which sparked a fire under teammate Stephen Jackson.
Artest went and layed on the scorers table to try and avoid a problem. Little did Artest know, that would be the worst decision of the night.
Artest layed on the table to try and diffuse the situation and little did he know that a fan would get as close as possible and throw not 1, but 2 different beverage items at Artest.
He got up and started a fight in the stands that resonates still in the NBA today.
The initial aftermath of the actual brawl was felt all throughout the NBA.
Detroit Pistons were coming off an NBA championship and were only 7 games in when the brawl happened. The Malice At The Palace brought suspensions for Ben Wallace for 6 games, who had the most games suspended for all Pistons players. Chauncey Billups, Derrick Coleman, and Elden Campbell each had 1 game suspensions. The Pistons though perservered and found a way to make it to another NBA finals appearance, falling to the eventual champion Spurs.
The Pacers were hit the hardest in suspensions. Artest was pointed at as the outcast of this event and was suspended for the rest of the 2004-05 season, including the playoffs which in total amounted to 86 games that included 73 regular season games and 13 playoff games. Four other players received suspensions for the Pacers, Stephen Jackson got 30 games, Jermaine O’Neal had 25 games which was later reduced to 15, Anthony Johnson for 5 games and Reggie Miller for 1 game.
All in total, approximately $13 Million dollars were forfeited by players during their suspensions.
1 year of probation for each player. 280 hours of community service between 4 players. $1,000 dollars in fines. And anger management therapy for Artest, Jackson, O’Neal and Johnson.
According to reports, a lot of the players do not, still to this day want to talk about it.
Following from USA Today.
“They were very aware they had a big hole to dig out of,” current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, then President of NBA Entertainment, said of the Pacers. “They committed enormous additional resources to doing that. I think there is no magic formula for undoing the kind of damage that the brawl did.
“In part, there were concrete steps they could take but I think there was also a realization that a certain amount of time needed to go by, almost as in any mourning process before people were ready to turn the corner.”
The Indianapolis Star also reached out to but did not get responses from several former Pacers, including Artest (now known as Metta World Peace and playing in China) and Jackson. O’Neal replied to an interview request via text message, stating that he would “respectfully decline” and had “NO interest in talking about anything that has to do with the brawl or anything thing (sic) that’s associated with it! Life has moved on and so have I.” Miller and (Anthony) Johnson also declined to comment.
“It wasn’t just the brawl but there was a generalization being made often by the public and sometimes by the media … that our players were thugs,” Silver said. “It was a malicious and unfair stereotype about a group of 450 men.
“The great deeds of hundreds of players were being overshadowed by acts of a very few,” Silver continued. We just had to accept the responsibility that we were not doing a good enough job telling the positive stories about our players and we needed a platform to do that, and that led to the launch of NBA Cares.”
Time has passed and both franchises have turned things around, whether it be for better or worse.
Since the brawl, a lot has happened in 10 years. Detroit Pistons have posted a regular season record of 408-399 while the Indiana Pacers have posted a 374-445 record. Both teams pretty pedestrian but their roles switched. Detroit went from being an Eastern Conference powerhouse to now being an island of misfit toys, having a few guys on their roster that didn’t quite workout in other places.
Meanwhile, the Pacers have been one of the NBA’s elite teams due to the play of the younger guys in Paul George, Lance Stephenson and Roy Hibbert recently for Indiana. But this past offseason saw the Pacers get horrible news before the season even started, Stephenson went to the Hornets and George injured his leg during a scrimmage for Team USA basketball.
The Pistons kept their core of Bilups, Wallace, Wallace and Hamilton for a little while longer, until they had to dissolve the team and look for younger talent.
Also from USA today
In December 2005, Artest demanded a trade and soon got one. In October 2006, Jackson faced felony and misdemeanor charges after firing a gun outside a strip club and was traded near the first of the year. The team asked point guard Jamaal Tinsley not to show up in 2008. And earlier that same summer, the Pacers dealt O’Neal to Toronto.
The result of this changed a lot. The NBA stop serving alcohol late in games. Security at games was increased by a lot. The NBA also implemented a dress code to put the players in a different view for the audience.
One thing is for sure, this won’t be one thing NBA fans will forget about. Think about it like this, a decade later, can you recall where you were the night John Greene threw a beer at Ron Artest?
I can. I was that little impressionable 13 year old kid, just trying to watch 2 good teams play a basketball game.
