If Artest doesn't return, who will be the team's enforcer?

Man, we should have never let go of Ryan Bowen and Steve Novak.

They would have been excellent enforcers. Nobody f***s with those dudes. Beasts, I tell you... f'n beasts!

 

bobby sura, now that was our last true enforcer. remember josh howard fouling yao hard in a playoff game. in the SAME game, sura PURPOSELY fouled howard and let him know about it. and we all knew that was coming in retaliation

 

I can actually vaguely remember that exact play. Sura was a tough dude. He was overrated around here in terms of ability but he was a good teammate.

 

Let's assume the best basketball player on the court throws elbows. Let's also assume one of those elbows hits a scrub opponent who looks like he can bench 400 lbs. If the scrub opponent gets pissed, I'm pretty sure the elbows will stop.

 

i would think everyone on the court would pressure him to leave b/c he can't play ball and have to resort to such tactics. there's a reason u can spot scrubs on the court IMMEDIATELY.

i've gotten my share of elbows to the face and lower abdomen, but that is typical basketball. i mean, who doesn't like a physical in your face defense (which i do) but on fair play. you will know whether it's purposeful or not and u do what u have to do. but again, the good players usually let the game speaks for itself.

from my experience, i've seen my share of fights and stuff that happens from those stuff, but usually it involves a game of mostly "scrubs." usually there's the main court at a park that only the best players play in, and usually things go pretty smoothly, b/c u don't want to be singled out and embarrassed on the court with everyone watching

 

I know one thing for certain, if Im going into the playoffs and its going to be a tough knock down drag out street fight type of series. Im going to want Artest on my side, there is no dought in my mind that he's going to bring it. I love his old school attitude. I get frustated with his shot selection just like everyone else on this board, but his mental toughness combined with players like Scola, Battier and Lowry is just too invaluable to this team.

I agree with you that Artest should play more out of the block on offense and I think the rockets made a mistake getting away from that, he's a bull posting up.

 

See, I agree with this. Its the attitude of not being effed with is what ron brought to the team. It rubs off on the rest of the guys. Shane and scola play hard, but when was the last time either has given a hard foul? I can guarantee that the fisher play wouldn't have never happened to ron.

On another note, the best player on the squad normally sets the tone of the team. That's normally the guy that is the toughest, guy and everyone else falls in line. Somene mentioned Howard, the guy still has the kid smile, but what we have seen is he throws elbows and get people off of him. All the unneccesary fouls he faces, he doesn't let them slide. Dream didn't take anything from anyone, that's why u dint need a "enforcer" when dream was playing. He was the tough sob.

 

Like i said he's dirty....that's not enforcing, that's just being wreckless.

 

Too be honest, I am kind of missing J Ho.

I was pissed when Floppy Fish leveled Scola and no Rockets even minded to step forward and give Floppy Fish a shove. All the Rockets stood around like they were good students or they got punked. J Ho at least would have given Floppy Fish a 2 hand shove.

 

Didn't Scola take Odom down in a play when the game was already decided?

 

1. In the NBA there's too many rules for guys to just go crazy whenever they want..sometimes it can even be an advantage to get a guy to go off and shove you, since he may be kicked out or get T'ed up. ANd let's face it, Ron didn't strike fear into teammates this year like in past year, mainly because he's changed. He even said it himself, he's not going to retaliate. If i knew that before the series even started, then the lakers knew that too, they had no reason to be affected psychologically.

 

I'm of exactly the opposite opinion on that. Shoving back achieves nothing but give the other team an extra point. I prefer to accept the free points the Lakers give us, and come out of it looking like the classier, less dirty, team.

 

u right. I like the way he was going down guns blazing too. He was going to lose game 7, but he was going out on his terms. I would like the rox to give more hard fouls.

 

Really? How many NBA players do you know?

 

Can't agree with that.

Basketball is about winning, not looking classier or less dirty.

Why Floppy Fish leveled Scola? Floppy Fish tried to gain some psychological edge for himself and his team. He wanted to show his team they could be the aggressors and they were not taking any pushes or shoves. That's why the Rockets really needed to show they wouldn't take any of this **** by shoving back. If it costed you a point, so be it.

 

The same number that you do.

 

I played ball in high school and outside of school with some pretty mean dudes. I'm not talking about elbows or physical play intimidating people. You keep missing my point entirely and I realize it's because you've never seen, been the victim of or delivered what I'm talking about. You're not going to honestly tell me that if you're on the playground and you piss off a guy who has been known to beat the hell out of people that you're going to use it as motivation and run the guy off the court with your skills. It almost sounds like a bad Disney movie.

I know you said Ron only punched fans but the guy broke Jordan's ribs, comes from an extremely rough neighborhood and is a legitimate tough guy who also happens to be 260lb. I'm not really sure what series you watched but after Ron got in Kobe's face I didn't see anymore wild elbows unless you count the sneaky little one in game 6 that got Kobe a technical (that I think was rescinded). Again, I'm sure we will never agree but it was pretty obvious to me that the threat of Ron issuing his own justice was real and was in the mind of some of the Lakers.

 

Then you're blind.

 

Will you please stop talking about what a bunch of bad mofos you played ball with? Nobody cares about what means streets (LOL) you played on. It has ZERO relevance to NBA basketball. When was the last time you saw someone beat the crap out of someone else during an NBA game?

The Lakers didn't stop the rough stuff after game 2 because of Ron Artest. They stopped because they knew the NBA would start handing out suspensions like candy if they kept it up.

 

The game of basketball is about winning. But from a fan's perspective, image matters a lot as well. But that's more of a personal preference.

From the standpoint of winning, I don't think shoving back in that instance gives us any edge. Exhibit toughness by not responding and not getting intimidated by dirty play and rake in the free points the other team is willing to give you. That's what I want from my team.

Personally, what passes as "toughness" in sports for a lot of people I consider more to be mental fragility. There are legitimate ways of showing toughness on the court, but getting into shoving matches with other players isn't one of them.