What an absolute joke these suspensions are.
Artest gets suspended the whole season, while Wallace, who blatantly over-reacted to a foul, and because of his shoving incident and throwing a towel in Artest's face indirectly started this whole mess, gets suspended for only 6 games?
Bullshit.
And I applaud the Pacers players for what they did. Just because fans pay top dollar for a ticket, does not give them the right to throw objects at players, or to try to make themselves part of the game.
Throw out the whole "well, he's a professional player, he should be able to handle it" reasoning.
Look at it another way.
He's a human being, and if any one of us was just sitting there minding our own business and some jackass comes along and throws beer on us, how many of us would REALLY just turn the other cheek?
None of us would.
Is Artest a good guy? who knows? None of us really know him, but from the leaguewide support that he's been receiving from other players, and even players from other sports franchises such as the Indianapolis Colts, then he musn't be this spawn of Satan that everyone has him made out to be.
Is Artest really the one at fault? You tell me. Who's to blame, Ron Artest for acting the way that he did, when everyone knows full well that this type of reaction is EXACTLY what you would get if you did something like this to him, or the fan who threw the beer at him, knowing that doing so would cause that type of reaction.
People talk about how the players are animals. No, the fans are much, much worse, and finally someone decided to do something about it.
Lets look a this another way.
Lets say Del Piero is playing at the Stadio Olimpico, and some fan comes over and throws beer at him. As a fan of Juventus, how many of us here would want to grab that guy and wring his neck for what he did? Probably all of us. Now, how many of us would TRULY be upset if Alessandro decided he had enough and took matters into his own hands?