Sports brawls are dumb and infantile, not to mention expensive for the parties involved, embarrassing in retrospect and, as every TV announcer is legally obliged to note, impossible to explain to “the children watching this” without shattering the delicate latticework of their moral universe.
But that doesn’t mean they’re pointless, and the melee at the Staples Center between the Rockets’ Chris Paul and the Lakers’ Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram, who was cast in the part of the overgrown puppy nipping at the big dogs’ heels, was unusual for all kinds of reasons and will resonate far longer.
For starters, it managed to overshadow LeBron James’s home debut at the Staples Center, though here’s a riddle: can something be “overshadowed” if the first thing everyone mentions is how it got overshadowed? Obviously it did not, writers of all those “brawl overshadows LeBron’s Lakers debut” headlines, because it’s still right there in your headline.
For starters, it managed to overshadow LeBron James’s home debut at the Staples Center, though here’s a riddle: can something be “overshadowed” if the first thing everyone mentions is how it got overshadowed? Obviously it did not, writers of all those “brawl overshadows LeBron’s Lakers debut” headlines, because it’s still right there in your headline.
But also: actual stars punching and getting punched! These fights tend to involve bench players scrapping over an errant elbow, not two future Hall of Famers and alleged team leaders. Chris Paul stars in insurance commercials, for crying out loud. It was quite a scene. LeBron James in the middle. Carmelo Anthony breathing fire off the side.
A shameful display, yes – fighting, remember is the last harbor of feeble minds – but good golly, what a night.
Those of us who write and tweet and hot take about the NBA tend to treat these incidents in binary terms, as if they exist solely in the realm of conversation: Who started it? Whose fault was it? Who won? Is this GOOD or is this BAD? Were the suspensions fair? But for the teams involved, it’s a real thing that happened, with real (as opposed to theatrical) anger on both sides, and just as normal people don’t go right back to normal after a fist fight, NBA players, who are human beings and who get in fist fights just as infrequently as the rest of us, do not either. The fight over the weekend in Los Angeles – it doesn’t matter who won, but it does matter. It’s silly to say a well-timed brawl can’t affect team chemistry when brawls literally impact brain chemistry. It’s impossible to measure, of course – no one has studied the impact of a fight on a team’s subsequent win-loss record – but there is a pretty strong anecdotal evidence that guys who back each other up in a brawl tend to get closer as a result. It may not be the most enlightened way to bond, but in the NBA, wins are more important than being woke.
The question is, does this incident help your team or hurt your team – which is all the players really care about, anyway – and by that metric it’s easy to see why this was a good night for the Lakers, even if it did somehow overshadow the King’s arrival in Hollywood, and it’s hard to see it as anything but a worrying night for the Rockets.
For the Lakers, three games into the LeBron era, with a supporting cast of frisky kids and, in James’s words misunderstood, underestimated, determined veterans, the brawl couldn’t have been scripted better. After all, if you’re trying to galvanize a new roster, it’s hard to think of too many better ways than punching Chris Paul in the face. Half the NBA wants to punch Chris Paul in the face. (To be fair, the other half wants to punch Rondo.)
A more meaningful development may be what it demonstrated about Brandon Ingram, the Lakers’ relentless and hard-working but so far mild-mannered third-year slasher, whose uncharacteristic fury over a foul call lit the fuse on the brawl and who then came charging across the court to join in once the fists started flying. (Because the NBA has historically punished fight-joiners more harshly than fight-starters, Ingram drew the heaviest suspension.) LeBron’s title ambitions in Los Angeles depend on Ingram emerging as his new Kyrie Irving – an eager pupil with alpha-dog DNA, whose cheap rookie contract enables the Lakers to shell out for a third star via free agency. It’s arguable that the single most important metric for the Lakers this season is not how deep they go in the playoffs – it’s how much better Ingram gets. If he stalls this season, Magic Johnson needs a new road map.
So: did LeBron James wake up Sunday morning feeling better about Brandon Ingram, or worse? Is he worried that Ingram seemed not to know his place – the unproven kid nosing into a scrap between two grown men? No. He saw the same thing we all saw: Ingram catching fire, playing second fiddle with the heat and intensity and confidence that LeBron requires.
A shameful display, yes – fighting, remember is the last harbor of feeble minds – but good golly, what a night.
Those of us who write and tweet and hot take about the NBA tend to treat these incidents in binary terms, as if they exist solely in the realm of conversation: Who started it? Whose fault was it? Who won? Is this GOOD or is this BAD? Were the suspensions fair? But for the teams involved, it’s a real thing that happened, with real (as opposed to theatrical) anger on both sides, and just as normal people don’t go right back to normal after a fist fight, NBA players, who are human beings and who get in fist fights just as infrequently as the rest of us, do not either. The fight over the weekend in Los Angeles – it doesn’t matter who won, but it does matter. It’s silly to say a well-timed brawl can’t affect team chemistry when brawls literally impact brain chemistry. It’s impossible to measure, of course – no one has studied the impact of a fight on a team’s subsequent win-loss record – but there is a pretty strong anecdotal evidence that guys who back each other up in a brawl tend to get closer as a result. It may not be the most enlightened way to bond, but in the NBA, wins are more important than being woke.
The question is, does this incident help your team or hurt your team – which is all the players really care about, anyway – and by that metric it’s easy to see why this was a good night for the Lakers, even if it did somehow overshadow the King’s arrival in Hollywood, and it’s hard to see it as anything but a worrying night for the Rockets.
For the Lakers, three games into the LeBron era, with a supporting cast of frisky kids and, in James’s words misunderstood, underestimated, determined veterans, the brawl couldn’t have been scripted better. After all, if you’re trying to galvanize a new roster, it’s hard to think of too many better ways than punching Chris Paul in the face. Half the NBA wants to punch Chris Paul in the face. (To be fair, the other half wants to punch Rondo.)
A more meaningful development may be what it demonstrated about Brandon Ingram, the Lakers’ relentless and hard-working but so far mild-mannered third-year slasher, whose uncharacteristic fury over a foul call lit the fuse on the brawl and who then came charging across the court to join in once the fists started flying. (Because the NBA has historically punished fight-joiners more harshly than fight-starters, Ingram drew the heaviest suspension.) LeBron’s title ambitions in Los Angeles depend on Ingram emerging as his new Kyrie Irving – an eager pupil with alpha-dog DNA, whose cheap rookie contract enables the Lakers to shell out for a third star via free agency. It’s arguable that the single most important metric for the Lakers this season is not how deep they go in the playoffs – it’s how much better Ingram gets. If he stalls this season, Magic Johnson needs a new road map.
So: did LeBron James wake up Sunday morning feeling better about Brandon Ingram, or worse? Is he worried that Ingram seemed not to know his place – the unproven kid nosing into a scrap between two grown men? No. He saw the same thing we all saw: Ingram catching fire, playing second fiddle with the heat and intensity and confidence that LeBron requires.
