Carmelo gets suspended for "going ghetto"

The NBA earned another black mark, this time from Saturday’s fourth quarter brawl between the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets. All 10 players on the court were ejected after the melee which began when New York's Mardy Collins tackled Nuggets' J.R. Smith as he went up for an uncontested dunk. The fracas featured players diving into the stands to fight each other while the league’s leading scorer Carmelo Anthony tossed haymakers. Anthony was suspended 15 games for his part with the other players involved also receiving fines and suspensions.

Unfortunately this investigation has resulted in the typical combination of public reprimands, fines and suspensions that have proven to be ineffective in stemming the recent surge in the unprofessionalism of NBA players on and off the court. Such punishments only serve to reinforce undesired behaviour as it has the effect of increasing a player’s street cred and marketability in the ghetto. Carmelo might receive a $50,000 fine, but FUBU is going to have to pay him an extra half-mil to get him to pimp out their clothes now.

You know, we laughed at Ron Artest last week, but maybe he’s right when he says that Stern “ain’t understand how to deal with NBA people that are from the ghetto.” Maybe we should just accept that you can take a brother out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of a brother.

And the fact that Ron Artest is starting to make sense can only mean that humanity is faced with extinction at the hands of a space-time paradox. The only way to save the universe now is to use Adam Morrison’s moustache to power a time machine back to the 70s so we can stop Wilt Chamberlain from fathering Artest in the first place. I’m not exactly sure he’s the father, but it’s a good a starting point as any.