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Originally Posted by maybeshewill13
Holy **** he only got 26 games for knocking out one dude and nearly killing another?  |
Like at least one poster said, it WAS a different time with regard to fighting in the NBA in 1977. Fights broke out nearly every night; teams had "enforcers" (on-court bodyguards for their star players) and "hatchet men" (whose job it was to take the other team's best player out of the game, either by deliberately injuring him or by provoking him into a fight which MIGHT get one or both players ejected...notice I said "MIGHT" because fighting did not always result in ejections back then) among other types of tough guys. Some star players, like Golden State's Rick Barry, also got into a lot of fights in those days.
For example, the 1976-77 season alone saw 41 fights which each resulted in at least one ejection. There were many others (including some major incidents such as Houston's Calvin Murphy's beatdown of Boston's Sidney Wicks and a playoff fight between Golden State and Detroit that went into the Golden State stands TWICE) that had no ejections. Newspapers only bothered to mention fights where punches were thrown, which tells me that pushing/shoving/wrestling incidents were largely not mentioned because they were so numerous that they were considered a normal part of a game.
Then-NBA Commissioner Lawrence O'Brien only instituted fines going up to $10,000 for fighting for the 1977-78 season. Before that fines were much smaller.
Re: Pacers and Warriors Brawl/PUSHING MATCH
