THE NBA AND BAND-AIDS

I’m so not a band-aid kind of guy. If you hate terrorists and bring up the subject, I’ll ask, “What made them that way?” If you abhor the imperialist history of any given nation, I’ll inquire about the path that led to avarice and conquest. Ask for the head of one Metta World Peace of the Los Angeles Lakers (MWP), the eccentric formerly known as Ron Artest, and I’ll present the interrogative, “Who else’s head belongs on that platter? Are there hosts of suspects, sadists  and maniacal miscreants who should be fired from their extremely lucrative pro-jock jobs? Who are the nemeses of pure sport who should be banished far from basketball loving fans and the general populace of super athletes?”

I’ve had a hard time this week in my vocabulary scrimmages with people who not only call Metta’s elbow move to the head of James Harden “Bush League” but worthy of criminal assault. Try as I may, it’s hard for me to merely talk about the isolated severity of MWP’s actions last Sunday vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, one of the NBA’s most dynamic up-and-coming franchises poised for a run at this year’s title. People don’t like frighteningly violent plays in any sport, particularly when the guilty part has a history of at least one epic fit of rage (In 2004 MWP, then Ron Artest, ran into the stands to attack a fan he believed had dumped beer on him intentionally.)

Singularity is easy when it comes to vilifying someone. I mean, we all hate brutes who assault women and children, murder people and cheat. Something in us burns at the sound and sight of innocent victims being harmed. This is why the Columbines and Virginia Techs of our era are so appalling. I reckon gross acts of violence strike deep chords synonymous with the types that riddled communities affected by the American Civil War, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attacks. Humans have strong protective instincts that extend into self-sacrificial proportions when offspring are threatened. My mom once went after a kid who had pulled a knife on me. Fortunately, we managed to “mysteriously” avoid that confrontation. Translation: When she made me get in the car to go find the kid who chased me home, I pretended I didn’t see him still standing in the location where he first confronted me.

But somewhere in our history on the planet, the righteous indignation so prevalent in momentary encounters with violence and injustice stopped transferring to the bigger picture. Case-in-point: The uproar in favor of banning MWP permanently from the NBA. If I could be heard on this issue all I’d write in caps is HERE YE HERE YE, MWP IS BUT A SYMPTOM. Why is this such a difficult truth? It is inconvenient yes because the financial apple cart of professional sports sits on a broken sidewalk. Elite men and women with extreme character flaws define sports. They have public selves we admire and private personas we lambaste. We expect the most privileged and most touted subculture of our populations to be humble having no practice in the art. We call them down-to-earth because they once signed a batting glove or jersey. In a magical vacuum we have conjured archetypes of heroes made flesh. But alas, they are even more earthly than we imagined.

There but for the grace of God go all of us but the usual offenses of our athletic icons include things like Hugh Hefner-esque promiscuity, gambling, habitual drunken driving, public violence and even murder. We the sinfully sanguine take aim at certain villains and not others. We rant about the no-brainers and evade the complexities of moral overhaul. Have we forgotten our friends Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton who, within the last two seasons, decided to bring personal firearms into an NBA arena despite the fact that neither player worked for the secret service? We’re talking about making an example of MWP but one of the two regulators I just mentioned is still playing NBA basketball. Crittenton has murder charges pending for the killing of a mother of four he says he didn’t mean to shoot. Then there is the infamous retired New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams who accidentally shot and killed his driver with a 12-gauge and attempted to avoid charges.

The point is not that Metta World Peace deserves kid gloves are pardons. There is no justification for brutality in sport, which is very different from good old physical competition. We need not contrast his citizenship restoration over the last 8 years or his placid moniker against what many would call a rapacious core. Whether the blow to James Harden’s skull was intentional or not is a mutually exclusive issue, supposing we discuss it purely on the merit of how it compares to other brutish acts in sports. My point is simply that irresponsibility is not a stranger to the NBA particularly. Air Jordan himself is said to have had a gambling problem on par with Charles Barkley’s $10 million fettish. Players have misrepresented or at least embarrassed their wealthy employers on countless occasions. Now retired San Antonio Spurs defensive stopper Bruce Bowen was kicked an opposing player in the face in a way that seemed intentional. We praise my favorite player of all time, Magic Johnson, as an ambassador for HIV awareness and he is that. But he also lived recklessly en route to the disease and put countless individuals at risk. He would and has echoed this truth.

All I’m saying is, players have made a living off of  and while committing egregious acts. They have done things you and I would be fired or jailed for. Band-aids are for small cuts. The NBA’s character wound is much less benign. It is a gushing wound, bleeding profusely as numerous negative traits trickle downward for aspiring youth to acquire. There’s hard but rewarding roads ahead should the NBA choose to travel them and it will take some courageous, insightful and ethically brazen individuals to step to the task.