Davis suspended five games
January 19th, 2006The NBA suspended New York Knicks forward Antonio Davis five games for entering the stands to protect his wife during last night’s game in Chicago.
“At the end of the day, what we had to decide on was the issue of Antonio breaking the barrier from the court into the stands,” NBA vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson said during a conference call. “At the end of the day, that was the most important aspect of making that decision.”
I think it’s good that the NBA took the circumstances into consideration when handing down the suspension, and I still say Davis did the right thing.
Unfortunately, the fan involved in the incident, Michael Axelrod, claims he did nothing wrong and is planning to sue Davis.
Of course he is. Litigation — it’s the American way. Let’s hope that lawsuit goes nowhere. Davis didn’t assault this guy and he was harmed in no way.
Many of the stories I’m hearing in media (such as Chicago sports radio & news papers) recount that Mrs. Davis has been known for her, shall we say, mixing it up at games. She is a frequent presence at her husband’s games. If you see some of the video of the incident, she is clearly trying to keep the gentleman from calling security. Her facial expressions and movements indicate to me that she is trying to dissuade any further attention being drawn to the incident. Perhaps because she knows that she is more culpable than what is being otherwise reported. After all, she once heckled Latrell Sprewell during a game, going toe to toe with him.
Having said that, any man who cares even a bit about his family would have done the same thing. I cannot fault Mr. Davis for being concerned about his wife; I wonder, however, if he is ready for the possible revelation that his wife may have reacted to a fan in an inappropriate way, thus escalating the incident further than it needed to be.
America is now an “in your face” culture. Why are we surprised when things like this happen?
Now Mr. Axelrod is suing Mrs. Davis for assault and Mr. Davis for slander to the tune of over $1,000,000. He looked so pitiful in his SportsCenter interview, I felt sorry for him. She really beat him up badly in that video. (Sorry, Friday is my sarcastic day!)
The league needs to cordon off an area for player’s families. This shoud have been done years ago. They need to see to this ASAP.
I thought 6 games was too harsh. I suspect that the suspension will get knocked down to 3 games. That’s about where it should have been in the first place. It won’t really matter though. Its not like the Knicks are in the hunt for an Eastern Conference Title.
Davis deserved the punishment. You can’t go willy-nilly into the stands just because your family is having a disagreement. In this case, in the video you can clearly see that his wife is the one who should have been tossed out for instigating the entire event. The fan is the one who called security over in the first place!
Actually, the video picked up the confrontation in progress. We don’t really know what happened before the part that we saw.