Union appeals suspension

[Manu20]

NEW YORK(AP) The NBA players' union filed an appeal Tuesday on behalf of Indiana Pacers Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O'Neal, who were suspended for their roles in a brawl with Detroit Pistons fans last week.

The union asked that an arbitrator decide whether there should be reductions in the suspensions handed out Sunday: Artest was banned for the season, Jackson for 30 games and O'Neal for 25.

Union director Billy Hunter has called the penalties excessive, saying a suspension of about 35 games would have been more appropriate for Artest.

Commissioner David Stern, who issued the suspensions, has sole discretion under collective bargaining rules over penalties for on-court behavior, and all appeals go through him, too.

The union, however, asked in its one-page appeal that the case go to arbitrator Roger Kaplan.

"We're are arguing that the discipline imposed is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement, and without just cause," union spokesman Dan Wasserman said.

Stern would normally have 20 days to rule on an appeal of an on-court discipline matter, and it was unclear whether the union's appeal strategy would put this case under that timetable.

An NBA spokesman said the appeal was received but that the league would have no other immediate comment.

"I think David Stern is trying his best to preserve the integrity of the game and his industry, but due process must be honored, and all the mitigating factors must be included on a final decision," said Jesse Jackson, who said he spoke with Stern by telephone on Monday.

In other developments:

_ Two fans sued the Pacers and Artest, Jackson and O'Neal, contending they were injured in the fracas at the end of Friday night's game at Detroit. John Ackerman, 67, says he was hit by O'Neal and then knocked unconscious by a thrown chair. William Paulson, 26, says Artest and Jackson assaulted him.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Dear Billy Hunter,

Eat shit and die.

Signed,

The Fans

PS. Fuck you.

[ALVAREZ6]

Dear Billy Hunter,

Eat shit and die.

Signed,

The Fans

PS. Fuck you.

:spin

[RobinsontoDuncan]

He has to do his job, but i think what they should do is appeal the artest suspension and take it down to 60 games if he agrees to see a shrink twice a week to get his mind right.

[ALVAREZ6]

I think they should keep his punishment the way it is. Artest should learn how to act in an NBA basketball game the hard way, and there's no harder way than not playing at all for a whole season. If you make a total count of how many people he attacked/punched/slapped on Friday, it would be a lot. One thing that he did to make his punishment so great was punching that last fan in the face twice on the court. That fan didn't attack him, so Artest decided to attack him first. Thats what I think really made his punishment stand out the most from S-Jax and Jermaine.

[Rummpd]

Some things are a lock, the jerk in the white hat, agents and unions will cry foul. Those in the NBA realm should be thanking their stars that Jackson did not get a larger punishment and what if O'Neil hadn't slipped? = one potentially brain dead kid (if you believe the stories that that fat person was only 16 = is that confirmed?).
MadDoc

[Useruser666]

Reduce Artest's suspension to 10 games. But he must wear a straight jacket and that Hannibal Lector mouth piece at all times.

EDIT: My mind is just not in my work!

[Notorious H.O.P.]

Reduce Artest's suspension to 10 games. But he must wear a straight jacket and that Hannibal Lector mother piece at all times.

Good call user. Let's also reduce Jackson's suspension to 5 games but make him roll Artest around the court on a dolly.

[violentkitten]

fuck the union

[rr2418]

To me Artest got a slap on the wrist!! He should've at least gotten suspended for the whole year including playoffs and maybe part of next season! This suspension really falls into Artest's best interest. He gets to manage his rap groups and promote their cd. It's no big deal at all!! Like I said, "A slap on the wrist".

[boutons]

"agrees to see a shrink"

.... which apparently doesn't guarantee much of anything:

================================================== ========

Anger Management May Not Help at All

November 24, 2004
By BENEDICT CAREY

The brawl that erupted last week at a basketball game in
Auburn Hills, Mich., has prompted extensive soul-searching
about the role of aggression - on the part of athletes and
fans - in sporting events.

But the fight has also exposed the weakness of a common
assumption: that anger can be treated almost as if it were
an infection, with a course of anger-management classes
instead of antibiotics.

Ron Artest, the Indiana Pacer at the center of the N.B.A.
melee, was ordered to participate in anger-management
classes at least once before, in 2002, after he was accused
of striking a former girlfriend, and may be ordered to do
so again.

Psychologists said they were not surprised that previous
counseling had failed to hold Artest's outbursts in check.

"Anger-management classes, I think, are a Band-Aid; they
allow people to feel they've done something, but they
haven't had any kind of real treatment," said Dr. Ray
DiGiuseppe, a psychologist at St. John's University, where
Artest played college basketball. "We have no organized
treatment, no idea whether counselors doing the teaching
have training in mental health. We're operating under this
delusion that we're helping people when we may be just
continuing the violence."

Artest is not the only athlete to be sent for
anger-management training. Earlier this year, Los Angeles
Dodger outfielder Milton Bradley said he would seek anger
counseling after a confrontation with a fan. And Jose
Guillen, an outfielder recently traded by the Anaheim
Angels to the Washington Nationals, was reportedly asked to
attend anger-management classes after he threw a tantrum in
the dugout.

Anger training is often mandated by courts for spouse
abusers, violent criminals, bullying adolescents and
aggressive drivers. The classes are based on a loosely
defined set of principles and techniques thought to help
some people settle or contain outbursts.

A pattern of hostile behavior is not considered a specific
diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association,
something that limits research that could lead to effective
treatment.

State and county programs have generally been set up
without consulting research, experts say, and the result is
an unregulated system without any agreed-on standards of
what should be taught, when, and to whom. Recent studies
suggest that the techniques can be helpful for some people,
but that in many cases the classes have little or no
measurable effect, and can potentially make the problems
worse.

"Certainly the odds of seeing some benefit go way down if
the person does not want to be there, if they come in with
an attitude, 'I'll shape up as soon as the world starts
treating me better,' " said Dr. Jerry Deffenbacher, a
psychologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins,
who specializes in anger treatment. "Our profession has
done a poor job of designing a program to help this kind of
person."

In a 2003 review of 92 anger-management treatments,
including more than 1,800 people, DiGiuseppe and Dr.
Raymond Tafrate, a psychologist at Central Connecticut
State University, found that the classes can reduce
feelings and expressions of anger in people who are
motivated to change their behavior.

The courses are typically group-counseling sessions that
include relaxation training, some techniques for
identifying anger and its causes, and assertiveness skills,
to teach people to express their emotions without losing
control. Another treatment teaches people to think through
the consequences of striking out, a concept that is not
always so evident, especially to young people whose tempers
often get them into trouble.

But psychologists and psychiatrists say that in many
people, a short fuse and strong aggressive instincts go far
deeper than an inability to relax or assert themselves. A
continuing survey of men and women who have sought anger
management in the New York area found that about 60 percent
have other mental troubles, most often drug or alcohol
abuse or leftover distress from early traumatic
experiences. People whose angry outbursts actually land
them in court tend to be far more troubled, researchers
find: depression, anxiety and impulse-control disorders are
commonplace.

"In these cases, clearly, the anger skills are only going
to work if the other problems are addressed first, which
usually mean more in-depth one-on-one counseling," said Dr.
Mitch Abrams, director of inpatient psychology at Northern
State Prison in Newark. "You have to quiet down the loud
stuff before you can get anywhere."

Some anger-control techniques even seem to make people more
apt to lose their temper. In a reanalysis of their data,
the St. John's researchers found that programs that
encouraged people to feel their rage and to vent it in
counseling sessions were associated with poorer outcomes.
The findings mesh with the message from a series of studies
in the 1990's in which psychologists found that venting
anger, for example, by hitting a pillow, in fact escalated
anger and intensified physical sensations of fury like a
racing heart and flushed face.



Classes that include more than 10 or 12 people but only a
single instructor can also exacerbate angry feelings, as
group members identify with and justify each other's sense
of frustration and bitterness, experts said. "Teams will
contact me to do anger-management workshops and modules
reactively, after something has just happened, as if I
could somehow undo what was done," said Abrams, who also
consults with sports programs through a firm called Learned
Excellence for Athletes. Abrams said that sometimes teams
enlist his help more to reduce liability than in an earnest
attempt to change behavior.

In one case, he said, he got a call from a high school
after its lacrosse team beat up two teenagers on Halloween
night, "just for the fun of it."

"I came in and did this intervention, on a Saturday
morning, and some of these players were indignant, saying,
'I can't believe I'm here now,' " Abrams said. "I had to
explain to them that the only reason they weren't in jail
was that their parents were on the PTA."

With earlier attention to aggression and anger problems, he
said, clubs and sports programs in particular might avoid
these kinds of episodes altogether.

Courses intended to curb domestic violence usually focus on
relationship counseling more than anger-management advice,
but these classes, too, have proved less effective than
previously thought in reducing violence. In a review of 22
studies of state programs, a team of psychologists in Texas
and New York reported in January that the courses had
little positive effect. Many anger-reduction classes aimed
at spouse abusers teach that violence stems from
inequalities in power between the man and the woman, and
that a more egalitarian relationship will help defuse
tensions.

"I love this idea, and it has had powerful impact in
bringing recognition to the seriousness of domestic
violence," said Dr. Julia Babcock, a psychologist who is an
associate professor at the University of Houston and the
lead author of the study, "but unfortunately, it doesn't
work as well as we think it should."


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Clandestino]

penalty was too harsh.. i know i'd be ready to fight if someone came to my work and threw beer/water/whatever at me.

[ALVAREZ6]

Artest is just a crazy mofo who gets away with a lot of BS that many people don't see.

You remember when he shanked Paul Pierce in the post and the refs didn't see it.
Then on TV, he sanga gay apology to Paul in a sarcastic way that would make Pierce more pissed off.
Artest is just a flamer , i hope no one buys his gay CD, and has fun watching the whole season.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Artest is lucky he wasn't banned for life.

Him, the union, and Billy Hunter should be writing Stern thank you notes, not pimping CDs on the morning show.

[spursfaninla]

penalty was too harsh.. i know i'd be ready to fight if someone came to my work and threw beer/water/whatever at me.

Um, where do you work? You must not like your job very much, because if you fight at work, you is fired.

I like my job, and have a son to provide for. I wouldn't let some stupid sense of macho pride get in the way of what is most important; taking care of my family.

Grow up, son.