Oops, I forgot
Weird, weird story out in California, and no surprise that Ron Artest is involved. The onetime Bull and Indiana Pacer, who along with the NFL’s Chad Johnson helped bring the Mohawk back to professional sports this year, was visited on his $1.85 million-dollar estate last week by Animal Services, which accused the crazed hoops star of starving his Great Dane. According to news reports, neighbors complained to authorities that the dog — who goes by the weirdly Clintonian moniker “Socks” — was starving inside the gates of the Artest mansion.
Artest lives in a town called Loomis, in Placer County, outside Sacramento. Now that his dog has been taken away, he has 10 days to request a hearing on the merits of the case.
According to various newspaper reports, neighbors of Artest’s in the Loomis gated community where he lives were so upset by his treatment of Socks that they plan on drawing up an ordinance requiring residents to take good care of their pets.
Artest’s publicist declined comment on the incident.
This isn’t the first incident of animal abuse connected with the NBA. Celtic-for-a-second Qyntel Woods was busted on animal-abuse charges while a member of the famed Jail Blazers squad a few years back. Police suspected Woods of entering his pit bull, Hollywood, in dog fights.
I’m giving Artest 35 points for this incident, and it goes up to 50 if he ends up losing his grievance. We expect NBA players to wave guns at people in the parking lots of strip clubs, but starving a dog just goes too far. David Stern must be nursing a nice healthy aneurysm right now.
Keeping pace
Meanwhile, Artest’s former teammates on the Indiana Pacers suffered yet another nighttime scandal last week, as point guard Jamaal Tinsley, mini-dredded two-guard Marquis Daniels, and recently acquired journeyman Keith McLeod were involved in a mysterious bar fight that reportedly left a bar manager with a fractured jaw and a severed earlobe.
According to reports out of Indianapolis, the trio was relaxing at a tavern called 8 Seconds when a dispute broke out over a customer who had allegedly stolen some coats from the bar. The thief somehow escaped, but in the wake of the incident the hoopsters got into a heated discussion with the bar manager that led to a scuffle. The manager told police he believed that Tinsley was “trying to kill him.”
Tinsley, for his part, denied any involvement in the incident. “I had nothing to do with this,” he said. Daniels concurred: “I am totally innocent.” Pacer coach Rick Carlisle, meanwhile, went for the time-tested “let’s let the judicial system run its course” strategy.
“I know those guys have all issued statements denying the kind of involvement that’s been alleged, and there’s a legal process that we’ve got to respect,” Carlisle said. “That’s kind of where we are.”
The incident occurred, ironically, after a loss to Golden State, the team from whence McLeod came in an eight-player trade that was mainly designed to get Pacer team cancer Stephen Jackson out of town. Jackson and Tinsley had been involved in a classic strip club/parking lot/gunplay incident in October that angered Pacer management. Jackson still faces criminal recklessness charges; Tinsley was not charged in that incident.
