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By Root 2092 0

with all of us—John Saunders, Greg Anthony, and myself. When we went to commercial, I got a call from Joe Dumars, who told me, “You can’t say that. There is never an excuse for a player to do that.” Then Rob Parker, the great columnist for the Detroit News, called me and was screaming the same thing at me. When we came back on air, I said that I was glad Joe had called, because he put the whole thing in perspective. Nobody affiliated with the NBA should ever do what Ron had just done. The next morning, Mark Shapiro woke me up with a phone call and he was really upset by what the others had said, and the excuses they made for Ron. I told Mark, “We all messed up. We all made mistakes last night.”

JOHN SAUNDERS:

I’m gonna first say that while it’s one of the most controversial things that happened in my career, I still stand by everything I said. I’m not sure that I had the right to take that forum, which belongs basically to ESPN, and use it on my own, but I still stand by what I said.

What happened was the fight starts at the Palace, and I’m jumping up and all of us—Greg Anthony, Tim Legler, and Stephen A. Smith, we’re all, “Oh, my God, do you believe this?!” And all of a sudden I’m looking at Ron Artest lying down on the table and I say, “Oh, Ron Artest, for once, is taking the high road.” And then I see the drink come flying over. Now I’m losing my mind. And I’m losing my mind for a couple of reasons. One, because as an African American—African Canadian—I truly believe that had a white player been lying on the bench there, I don’t believe that cup would have been thrown. Number two, as Ron Artest then goes into the stands, I could empathize because as a black hockey player, I took a lot of crap playing hockey from players on the ice and people in the stands. And on at least one occasion, I went into the stands. I was playing in a game and the guy hit me with a stick and cut me over the top of my eye, and I was going into the locker room to get stitched up, and as I was going in, somebody from the stands used the N word and I went into the stands after him. I hit him and got thrown out of the game.

So I could empathize. Now, as it gets more and more out of control, I’m getting more and more worked up. What I’m seeing, what David Stern at home is seeing, is his product deteriorating. Now the scene goes to the floor, fans on the floor, okay, so now we’ve crossed both areas. Not only have the players gone into the stands, the fans have come onto the floor, they have come into the player’s workplace, as far as I’m concerned. Now, to me, if you’re dumb enough to come onto the floor, with these 6-feet-8, 6-feet-11, 270-pound guys, then you deserve what you get. That’s what I’m thinking. But again, emotions are building. Now the last thing we see as the players are leaving are fans pouring beer and soda and popcorn onto the Indiana players as they’re leaving. And right then, they go to me, “You’re on!” and I hear, “Let’s go back to John Saunders.” And my blood is boiling. The first thing that comes out of my mouth is “The Detroit Pistons fans are a bunch of punks and sissies.” Then I said, “Ron Artest had every right to go into the stands. If he were walking in Times Square right now, outside of our building right here, and someone were to throw a drink at him, any one of us I think would all respond in the same way, we would go after the person.” I was really caught up. The other guys on the panel—I’m not sure shared my views 100 percent, but they adopted them, and they kind of emotionally got caught up in it as well. Our producer, Mike McQuade, was in my ear, but he wasn’t leading me in any way, and he wasn’t dissuading me from giving my opinion. He was trying to say, “Be strong, make sure you cover this as you see it.” I think if you talk to Mike today, he would say that in hindsight, he would have probably had us give both sides, as opposed to just reacting to our opinions about it, and say, “Yes, a player should never go into the stands.” If I added that one sentence, there would have been no controversy over it.

MIKE