Rex Hudler

I'm not so sure what they have. Apparently they have a pretty good freshman (can't remember his name), and they have some experience coming back, but not a lot of it was very successful. I am looking at baby steps here. If they can win 12-15 games and finish no worse than 6th in the conference, then I think progress has been made. I guess we'll see when they start playing good teams.

I gotta say bulls*** on your entire post. You are making excuses for players acting like thugs. Bulls*** again. If Artest doesn't charge into the stands, Pacers personnel get all of their players off the court and in a hurry. A few more things might have been thrown, but it would have paled in comparison. I'm done on this subject so rip away at me all you want. Not once have I condoned anything the fans did. Yet, that does not give the players free reign to do what the hell they please. There were lots of things that went wrong that night, but the worst of all of it was Artest's decision to go into the stands. It's funny how so many people are defending this, yet this is just a perfect example why the NBA has lost so much of its fan following in the past several years. They keep going in this direction, they will be like hockey, where no one gives a s*** if their game disappears.

I don't understand why people would want to vote for a thug who does nothing but cause problems? He has done nothing but cause problems throughout his career. I don't know if I am just really conservative or just old, but it repulses me to see people championing the behaviors of a societal idiot just because he can play basketball.

NOOOO He left the bench during the on-court mess with Wallace. Had NOTHING to do with what happened once Artest went into the stands.

Evansville wins their 2nd game of the season today, dropping Coastal Carolina 87-80.

Do we NEED 4 different threads going about the same subject.

I am from Indiana and disagree with almost everyone here, I guess. d Artest f***ed up and caused all of this. If he does nothing, security would have stepped in and handled the person who threw the cup of ice. Wallace would have gotten his suspension and everything would have been done. The Pacers players threw gas onto the fire rather than trying to put it out. rtest went into the stands out of retaliation, not self-defense. There is no way self-defense can be argued. The NBA is a thug league and has done nothing but get worse the last several years. David Stern HAS to be harsh in order to bring some civility to his league or things will just get worse. The penalties HAD to be harsh. Artest has a history. It doesn't matter how good a player he is. Someone has to get him under control and obviously this is the only way to do it. The Pacers team/fans are essentially getting punished because of their own problem child. Blame Wallace all you want, but the situation was over had Artest not decided on his own that it was okay to retailiate against an idiot fan (who may or may not have even thrown the cup of ice).

Exactly. So the NBA has to evaluate his punishment as if Artest never went into the stands.

The Indians had to make a move and either Crisp or Escobar was going to go to AAA. The Indians had apparently all but decided to send Crisp, but they put him in the lineup one final time. He went 5-5 or something like that and they changed their mind and decided to keep him. Escobar went down to AAA and later got hurt. He was then later put on waivers to open a 40-man spot for someone else (I believe that was the reason) and the Sox pulled a Texas Rangers and claimed him.

Apparently O'Neal also cold-cocked someone off camera too. While headed for the tunnel, I believe. Keep in mind, more may have happened than was shown on camera.

Question is, what would Wallace have gotten had the rest of the stuff with the fans never happened? That is how you have to look at it. His part was no more than a typical fight during a game. Artest went into the stands and could have controlled that. If 5 games is what Wallace would have gotten had the incident ended there and not spilled into the fans, then that is what he should have gotten.

Hey I am a Missouri Valley guy so I am with you on the Salukis. I have met and like Chris Lowery as well. Speaking of the Valley, cellar dweller Evansville won their opener Friday night with a 100-85 win over Central Michigan. I am not expecting big things, but hopefully they can improve. They went on a Canadian Tour in the preseason and won four games. They also won both of their pre-season games so Friday's win gives them seven in a row. Granted the competition level has sucked, but for them winning seven in a row against anyone is a step in the right direction.

Maybe because he repeated Low A, got sent to the bullpen and sucked (5.80 ERA when repeating a league = not good). The thing that was strange about An is he was pretty good in AA when he came up in 2003. Then he couldn't even make the team in 2004 and really struggled all year in Winston. Not sure what happened there.

quick, I think the difference is, how much money are we talking about. I don't think the Sox are making a ton of money each year. Could they be making marginal profits in some years, while breaking even or coming real close in others? Sure Profitability doesn't have to be a polar opposite argument. "Not making money" can mean breaking even or having marginal profits. It does not automatically have to mean "losing money". But I have no problem with them making money. I just don't think you are seeing $20 million to the positive at the end of the year. (just using a round figure) The Sox investors main benefit is from the increased franchise value, which is only paper money unless actually sold. That is their long-term profit. But let's say the Sox make a profit of, say $3 - $5 million in a year. With roughly 70 investors, I think that is more than acceptable, should they decide to slice that up into a nice dividend. The key is how much do they make. My contention is that any operating profits being made are marginal and nothing extraordinary. If I am an owner, I'd like the business to make money and have the choice of whether to take a little dividend for myself or reinvest it back into the product. I don't think they have an OBLIGATION to the fans to sink every single penny on the positive side of the ledger back into the business. I DO think they have an obligation to run a club with a reasonable payroll based on their level of projected revenues for each year. My biggest problem with Sox management (other than I disagree with many of their personnel moves, but that is another arguement) is their constant increasing of ticket prices. I am not a believer in the concept that prices must increase every single year. I think they could gain a great feather in their public relations cap, should they announce they were holding prices as a thank you to those that support them. Then do everything they can to improve the club while staying within the confines of the budget they set and hope like hell they have a great season. Enough rambling, I hope I have gotten my point across.

I think you are missing my point. Outside of NBA cities, the sentiment is quite apathetic toward the NBA. NO ONE CARES. Even great ratings for an NBA game still are not "monster ratings". They don't get "monster ratings" for the playoffs.

Artest went into the stands after a fan. That CANNOT happen, no matter the circumstances. He will and SHOULD get the longest suspension. His past history of blowups/suspensions will not help his case either. There is a MAJOR difference between what Artest did and what Wallace did. That does not excuse what Wallace did, but the situation was basically over as far as the players were concerned when Artest went into the stands. The teams had been separated and while there was still some yelling going on, it was basically under control. I am also not excusing the idiot fans, but this all would have been avoided if Artest could have kept his cool and let security handle things after the drink was thrown at him. FWIW, ESPN did show as much as they could this morning. They took up between 30 and 40 minutes of a 60 minute Sportscenter with coverage of this crap. They showed the events in their entirety without editing it. It was extremely chaotic, that's for sure.

How much did you have to drink last night?

oh well.......

Heath is on the verge of turning the corner. He will have to get his ass in better shape coming into Spring Training and show that he is serious about being the pitcher many think he can be. That means he will have to be more focused and stay diligent on his physical conditioning, which he has had a problem with. Heath was solid last year for the Barons, yet not spectacular. He will have to be much better this year or he will get ripped by veteran hitters in AAA. He has the ability to get to the big leagues, but he is equally as close to being back in AA and being a career minor leaguer. This is the year he has to make a move or be lost in the shuffle. There is no doubt he has guts and is a gamer. He will battle hitters and not give in, even without his best stuff. That, and control are his strengths. He will have to take his control and turn it into top notch command to make it in the big leagues long term. He'll probably fall somewhere between 17 and 22 on BA's top prospect list, once the Prospect Handbook is out. I doubt very seriously he will be taken in the Rule 5 draft. Just my two cents. Hope that helps.

Where are you taking exception? I can't find anything in your post that disagrees with anything I have said.

Does the NBA actually ever have "monster" ratings?? I don't believe his decision will have anything to do with TV ratings for an upcoming game at all. I do believe in the end, not all of the suspensions will be the same. Stern understands that sometimes tough decisions need to be made and those often will hurt in the short term. Ratings won't affect such decisions.

The key is, they should have asked or known about this before, since he had already been employed by the D'backs for a year. It is not like he was a new hire from outside the organization.

Jerry is the Chairman. The rest of the ownership group is basically silent. I am not sure if it is public record who the rest of the owners are and what percentage they own. Steff could shed more light on this, I'm sure.

Smitty is a guy who may get a chance in the Show if he is in the right place at the right time. Whether he stays there for awhile will be up to him at that point.

I hate to see all of this, but I can't sugar coat the way I think. I hate the NBA for this type of thing. The NBA is a thug league and they market it that way. Incidents like these are why 75% of American could give a s*** less about their game. If you live outside an NBA city or outside of an urban area, then the NBA is about as meaningless as hockey. The only team I even halfway follow is the Pacers and that is because I used to think they were above all of that. Obviously, the makeup of their team has changed in the past few years, very much so for the worse. The problem is, the NBA is so pigeonholed as an urban game, it will be hard for them to clean it up, without losing the fans they have now.