Malice at the Palace

I remember this incident. I remember the backlash. But the way you hear the players explain it in this doc, you'd think it was a different incident altogether. No accountability whatsoever. Yes, a fan threw a cup at Artest. But that didn't start the riot. Artest jumping into the stands and wailing on the (wrong) fan is what started it. Don't get me wrong, the fan should have been ejected/arrested. But fans throwing things is not something new. As a player, you don't get to jump in the stands and attack them for it. That's not self defense. Jackson's argument that he was defending his teammate? No he wasn't. If he was, he would have been trying to pull Artest out of the stands, not throwing haymakers. Same for O'Neil. I will say that I didn't know O'Neil had his suspension shortened. I don't understand why. Clear video of him running across the court to sucker punch a fan who had already been separated from Artest. Again, he wasn't defending anyone, he was attacking someone. Fan was charged, as he should have been. But the sucker punch was completely unwarranted. All in all, there was a whole lot of wrong that went down. But the cup didn't start the riot, Artest did. Also of note, O'Neil says multiple times that if you saw the whole footage instead of the edited version, you would have a different opinion. I didn't see any new footage in this doc. And the footage I saw just reflects what I mentioned above.

Excellent documentary. The NBA owes an apology to, at least, Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson, and the Indiana Pacers. Former Commish David Stern tried, convicted, and sentenced the players in an ESPN court of law without investigation. The media and NBA branded the black athletes as "thugs" rather than address the belligerent drunks that moved down from the upper decks. As for Ron Artest, society at the time lacked compassion and awareness of mental health problems. A must see for any basketball fan.

This may be a more intriguing watch for those of us who are young enough to say we don't vividly remember the events surrounding the documentary... that way all the footage is new to us! Either way it was an interesting look into how the personal lives and mental health of players' can interact with sport's culture/fans with disastrous results. Most of the negative reviews here are a bit fixated on rating the documentary poorly due to somewhat sympathetic context provided regarding the athletes... it is worth seeing and the viewer can make independent judgements I'm sure.

Remember the incident but I also remember this as the day the league softened. I always felt bad for the players - at the time - and this made me empathise with them more. Loved how it pointed out the racism aspect against the nba and hip hop 'thug' life commentary by mainstream media. Well directed and a unique insight into Ron Artest who is probably one of the most underrated players of all time coz of the crazy.

I really enjoyed hearing the players involved talk about this with all these years of hindsight, but for whatever reason they played music over most of the interviews that was so loud it made them hard to hear. Overall though I thought it was well done. I'm not a huge basketball fan and didn't follow this particularly closely at the time, so it was interesting to hear a little more about how the whole thing went down. I took one star off for including the whiny fan that came onto the court and squared up with Artest, then had the audacity to go on tv almost 20 years later and complain about being a victim. Guys like that make fans in general look bad.

The "thug" narrative was widely used against black culture at the time and I am glad the people who used it is put infront of the viewers eyes. Thug didnt meant just a thug and the dress code wasnt just a dress code. NBA's failure to protect the players AND the fans was a disgrace but of course the "thugs" were the scapegoat. Salute and power to the players.