We playin' basket-brawl, we playin' basket-brawl.

Did you see this brawl this past weekend? The New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets decided to go all Pistons-Pacers at Madison Square Garden this weekend. The Nugs were up 19 points and still had starters in to run up the score and the Knicks decided they would start dishing out hard fouls. Then all hell breaks lose. Players are flailing at each other, at one point some players tumbled into the crowd. Luckily they weren’t in Detroit or the crowd would have taken this as an opportunity to degenerate into WW 3.

I think there are many to blame for this, the players are to blame mostly for cementing the NBA’s rep as being full of thugs. George Karl is to blame for trying to run up the score, probably because the Knicks sent his buddy Larry Brown packing after one season. Isiah Thomas is to blame for sending players into the game to be thugs and issue out hard fouls. Most everyone involved got some sort of punishment whether it is fines or suspensions.

The player I want to focus on is Carmelo Anthony, you know, Melo, the guy who is supposed to be the face of the NBA with Lebron and Wade. Melo proved to the world what he really is, a punk. Melo sucker punched a Knick player in the face and then ran away after doing it. He looked like a scared little 5 year old girl hitting and running. Melo wants to be all hard and represent because he comes out of the projects in Baltimore by appearing in Stop Snitchin’ drug dealer videos, by getting busted with weed. Well, he showed how hard he was. It may be hard to go back to the 'hood after his homies have seen him run away like a corn rowed chicken.

I hope this stays with him for the rest of his career. I hope the NBA pretty much locks him out of any kind of publicity opportunities. I hope he loses all those sponsors who want to be involved with him. The NBA wonders why no one really likes their product. I think this little incident shows why you never hear anyone say that the NBA is their favorite sport to watch.

This leads into a whole other issue with athletes packing guns around with them or having an arsenal of illegal guns in their homes. This means you Tank Johnson. These athletes fought their way out of the ghetto to get to the place where they make money and don’t have to worry about drugs or getting shot and they start buying guns. It makes no sense. They want to stay “hard” for their peeps. Well, I heard a caller on the Colin Cowherd show sum all this athlete/thug life up by saying, “There’s not enough hours in the day to be hard AND play sports for a living” And this was from a guy who seemed to definitely know what he was talking about. So please, athletes of the world stop doing stupid stuff and making sports fans embarrassed to be sports fans. And that is specifically directed at the Cincinnati Bengals.