The Junkyard

Did we see all the things Artest was doing in the game? To presume he was innocent of any "veiled" infractions is equivalent to saying Cam Newton went to Auburn for the love of the school. Artest is a known dirty player.

It's not a matter of defending Artest. I don't like Artest. It wouldn't bother me if they suspended him for a year. Thats not the point I was making.

Believe what you want but Harden was not moving to take an inbound. He had just got owned by Artest and was trying to be annoying, kind of a I'll show you type deal. That happens all the time now in what is now called "basketball", and IMO it gets old. There was no reason at all for him to disrupt his path back down court before the inbound. He did it cause he wanted to be annoying and he knew he could get away with it. Artest wasn't having it. Plain and simple. I don't think Harden's gesture fit his punishment, but IMO that needs to happen sometimes. Next time Harden will go play ball rather than try to annoy someone who just balled out on you. Not saying artest was innocent. I'd would have preferred to see him get knocked out, but IMO if your gonna do that kind of stuff be prepared to take the punishment. Especially when your doing it to a crazed loon.

+1 for a good clarification. i see your point, and didn't mean to imply harden wasn't trying to get under artest's skin. of course he was. i guess what i meant to say is that everyone does that-- basketball is such a rhythmic game that guys do stuff like this all the time to try and disrupt someone's flow. IMO it's just part of the game-- a little psychological thing guys do to get in each other's heads, especially guys who (like artest) have trouble controlling their emotions and can get caught up in stuff like that.

harden will probably think twice before stepping to artest again, though...

You do realize Artest dunked on KD right??