AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Four National Basketball Assn. players were suspended indefinitely Saturday after a melee at the Detroit Piston-Indiana Pacer game in which fans and players attacked one another, leaving the image-savvy league reeling from one of the ugliest incidents in its history.
In banishing Indiana's Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O'Neal and Detroit's Ben Wallace, NBA Commissioner David Stern called Friday night's violence "shocking, repulsive and inexcusable."
It was the latest in a rash of incidents pitting fans against professional athletes in recent years -- clashes that experts say suggest an increasingly dangerous blurring of the line between stage and audience.
"There is some sort of negative interaction between fans and athletes," said Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "It has gotten a lot nastier than just the common booing or commentary on the visiting team. It's gotten more edgy."
The length of the suspensions will be determined after the league completes its investigation, probably late today, Stern said in a statement.
Security was being increased at the Palace at Auburn Hills, the suburban arena where the defending NBA champion Pistons play the Charlotte Bobcats tonight.
Auburn Hills police also were investigating the incident, which began on the court with a hard foul by Artest and retaliatory shove by Wallace, then flared out of control when Artest and Jackson charged into the stands after a Piston fan threw a drink at Artest.
Two fans who came onto the court as the fracas continued were punched by O'Neal and Artest, a volatile player who has been suspended previously, one time for destroying expensive television equipment at Madison Square Garden in New York.
"This demonstrates why our players must not enter the stands whatever the provocation or poisonous behavior of people attending the games," Stern said, calling the incident "a humiliation for everyone associated with the NBA."
The NBA is not the only league coping with a tense relationship between athletes and fans.
In September, two Major League Baseball players were suspended for the remainder of the regular season after throwing objects into the stands.
Texas Ranger relief pitcher Frank Francisco was charged with aggravated battery, later reduced to a misdemeanor, after he threw a folding chair at fans near the bullpen in Oakland, breaking a woman's nose.
