Week Two-"The Throwdown in Motown!"

Granted I am in Indiana, and a Pacers fan but first off...its OBVIOUS that Stern went after Artest. The suspensions were expected, s/b manditory in fact, but a bit harsh! I do not think previous incidents s/b weighed into this, it should stand on its own. Granted none of the atheletes involved should have went into the stands, but HAD THERE BEEN SUFFICENT, COMPETANT SECURITY, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!!!! Security personnel should have been surrounding the perimeter of the court the moment things started to get out of control!

Lets disscect this for a moment:
First Artest fouls Wallace. Wallace thinks its a hard foul (although I seem to remember him fouling J.O *A LOT* harder in last seasons Eastern Conf Finals) and proceeds to grab Artest w/ two hands in the neck region. Then while a small crowd of people try to break this up, Artest visably tries to stay out of trouble by lounging on the scorers table. Now this act in itself speaks "wise ass" and seems to be asking for trouble. So while he is doing this Wallace throws his headband at him -- this seems to be some idiot in the stands a couple of rows back que to throw a beverage container at Artest and hits him in the head. So now Artest goes after the guy for retribution. Now hold the phone for a minute.....If someone hits ME in the head with something, I would go after that jerk too, and kick his ASS!! Maybe not the smartest thing, but that is human nature. Without going further, I think the main thing to look at here is WHERE THE HELL WAS SECURITY? DURING ALL OF THIS!?! When the foul occured, the first thing in place should be security surrounding the perimeter of the court facing the fans. If that happened, you are looking at a security person catching this idiot throwing something, and they could have immediately taken him down - isolated incident, end of story. This would have prevented players from going into the stands, and more importantly -- fans from coming on to the court. The guy that got in Artest's face and got his grill popped, deserved that and more!!! What if that guy had a knife on him?!?! We would be talking about something totally different now, wouldnt we??
The big problem with this, and I know the NBA will not want to hear this, is THE COURTSIDE SEATS FOR FANS NEEDS TO BE MOVED BACK. Sorry NBA that you will lose some $$ that these rich people sit in, but look at other sports....What other sport do you know of where the fans are so close, unrestrained to the action?? This goes deeper than Artest people......now this has total screwed the Pacers season. As a season ticket holder, if these suspensions stand, I hope I am not alone and will demand my money back, as this is not the team that I paid to see!!!!

Bottom line, I think that Stern went overboard on the suspension. My reasoning: a previous precedent. I was reading in the paper today, that a couple of years a go Vernon Maxwell got a 10 game suspension for going into the stands and hitting a fan. If this was a precedent, then why did O'Neal get 30 games for hitting some asswipe that came on the court!!! Also how does this justify Artest getting 73 games?!?! Stern was quoted as saying that he took previous incidents under consideration of this.....that is a bunch of bullshit!!! Thats double jeapordy! He already paid his due for those incidents....this should stand solely on its own!!!