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What's the big deal with fights in basketball? True, it is despicable and unnecessary but why do people get so horrified. Let's investigate.
In hockey, people go to the games to see a fight. In baseball, there is nothing more exciting than a bench-clearing brawl. You love it when a manager gets into the grill of an umpire. So why is basketball any different?
I think it has to do with the image that the NBA has been trying to create for itself under commissioner David Stern. What with the imposed dress codes, the banning of leg warmers, the technical foul issues; he is trying to clean up the league.
So when something like this happens, a brawl involving the league's leading scorer, it is viewed that somehow the NBA has failed to clean up it's act. Almost that the NBA is made up of the wrong class of people. Here's the thing, when you try to subdue the passions and personality, the freedom of expression of people, this sort of thing is going to happen. You are going to have tempers explode and erupt because you have tried to control the little outbursts instead of the bigger ones. You get a rollover effect, you get tension not from one game but possibly something that's been brewing over a larger portion of the season. Until you see severe penalties for a fight, and I mean like season suspensions or something as drastic, in a game look for this to continue. You have to be a bit unreasonable to get compliance sometimes.

Learn more about this author, Robert Solis.
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