Sullinger and Ray Rice

[dasani]

well said.  . finally someone with sense on here. Yes, many fans of teams think their player can do no wrong. Sullinger did do wrong in this case. Even the FO  suspended him for the opener last year (should have been more games) even though there were no charges. It was a bad look for the team.

Wait it was only for the opener? Then that's worse. I agree, there should be some kind of DV policy in the NBA in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal. The NFL has one now (supposedly). The NBA should follow it's lead.

Yes Silver is gonna look worse than Goodell on this one. There are several pending DV cases in the league. Silver's reaction to the Hawks thing showed his true colors. Now if he drops the ball on the DV thing he will look bad. Despite how he handled the Sterling-gate.

[zimbo]

The original comment wasn't black and white at all, your interpretation of it was.  He was saying that the two issues are not identical, but are different levels of domestic violence, which they are.  You seem to have interpreted it as "he doesn't think that Sully's case was domestic violence because he sees a difference between it and Ray Rice's incident"

DV has different levels.  Knocking your wife out, or visibly abusing your son are not on the same level as Sully's incident.  Should he have been punished more?  Absolutely.  But is the incident the same as Ray Rice's?  No, and saying it is is doing a disservice to Ray's wife

It's not an issue of severity to me. It is about the punishment level. The 2 games Sully got implied that it was not a serious issue to the league or the team. Most people thought Ray Rice's initial suspension was weak and that is in a 16 game suspension.

This. The FO dropped the ball on this one.

It absolutely did.

[zimbo]

Yes Silver is gonna look worse than Goodell on this one. There are several pending DV cases in the league. Silver's reaction to the Hawks thing showed his true colors. Now if drops the ball on the DV thing he will look bad. Despite how he handled the Sterling-gate.

Yeah a lot of people think this is more of and NFL issue because it is a contact sport and, supposedly, basketball isn't.  The NBA has the same dirty secret. The amount of DV cases by NBA players over the off season was astounding.

[TrueGreen]

It's wrong for someone to strike another person or animal. I don't think there's much argument here. The talk is more about how it's been handled by teams and leagues. From what I hear on TV it seems everyone is blaming the accused and their teams and leagues and demanding different actions.

That's easy to do, but this is a legal matter and it should be handled first by the Legal System in our country. The core of this system is everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

I have no first hand knowledge of any of the incidents mentioned. I didn't even know who Ray Rice is. All the talk is also made by people who were NOT there. Yes there are videos and Police Reports, but those of the public commenting on the issue still were NOT there.

Domestic and Animal Abuse is plain WRONG. But let the legal system handle.

We are focused on sports, but violence is part of our society. It goes on in small towns and huge corporations, just as it goes on in sports leagues. But the issue is more focused when a team or player we know is mentioned. We don't know the name of the guy in a large corporation who commits a similar crime. We do recognize the names of sports figures, but very few of us actually KNOW them.

If we can agree that Violence and Abuse are wrong and that the legal system should handle it, what should teams and leagues do about it. That's really up to them. Each team and league should handle it in their own way. If someone in a large corporation is accused of violence or abuse we will never hear about it and what the corporation does never makes the news. Teams and leagues have a more difficult job in handling this because an accusation against a player, for instance, is made so public. This is bad publicity for the teams. What they do needs to consider the affect on their businesses. (Large corps don't need to consider this because the publicity isn't there). The decision made by teams and leagues needs to consider their bottom lines. This includes the players whose salaries come from the league and vice versa.

What leagues and teams and player associations need to do is to do what's right and what is in the best interest of everyone (which usually comes down to doing what's right). This isn't that easy. The legal system needs to determine if a crime has been committed, not the teams or the public. The teams, league and player association then needs to make their decision.

[dasani]

if we had a video of sully i'm willing to bet sully would have received a higher punishment and scrutiny.

Definitely true, partly because people react more strongly to clearly seeing what happened, but mostly because it would remove a lot of doubt about the nature of the incident.  It's hard to separate the two.

definitely. was trying to make this point. got lost somehow.

[zimbo]

It's wrong for someone to strike another person or animal. I don't think there's much argument here. The talk is more about how it's been handled by teams and leagues. From what I hear on TV it seems everyone is blaming the accused and their teams and leagues and demanding different actions.

That's easy to do, but this is a legal matter and it should be handled first by the Legal System in our country. The core of this system is everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

I have no first hand knowledge of any of the incidents mentioned. I didn't even know who Ray Rice is. All the talk is also made by people who were NOT there. Yes there are videos and Police Reports, but those of the public commenting on the issue still were NOT there.

Domestic and Animal Abuse is plain WRONG. But let the legal system handle.

We are focused on sports, but violence is part of our society. It goes on in small towns and huge corporations, just as it goes on in sports leagues. But the issue is more focused when a team or player we know is mentioned. We don't know the name of the guy in a large corporation who commits a similar crime. We do recognize the names of sports figures, but very few of us actually KNOW them.

If we can agree that Violence and Abuse are wrong and that the legal system should handle it, what should teams and leagues do about it. That's really up to them. Each team and league should handle it in their own way. If someone in a large corporation is accused of violence or abuse we will never hear about it and what the corporation does never makes the news. Teams and leagues have a more difficult job in handling this because an accusation against a player, for instance, is made so public. This is bad publicity for the teams. What they do needs to consider the affect on their businesses. (Large corps don't need to consider this because the publicity isn't there). The decision made by teams and leagues needs to consider their bottom lines. This includes the players whose salaries come from the league and vice versa.

What leagues and teams and player associations need to do is to do what's right and what is in the best interest of everyone (which usually comes down to doing what's right). This isn't that easy. The legal system needs to determine if a crime has been committed, not the teams or the public. The teams, league and player association then needs to make their decision.

Well thought out and written response. But the problem is that the legal system handles the domestic violence improperly as well. All Ray Rice got was anger management. Because of the NFL's popularity it can even check the courts and influence them as well. I hate that a scandal had to expose the issue on individual, organizational, societal, and institutional levels.

[BballTim]

  I'm not sure how "these situations aren't the same" means "Sully is in the clear". Claiming that a comment about how one case of domestic violence can be worse than another automatically means that you don't think that anything less than the worse case is domestic violence is, in fact, ridiculous.

Okay, lemme see if I put it this way. Its not about the severity of the situation. It's about how Sully was disciplined by the NBA and the Celtics. He got ,what, 2 games out of an 82 game season? Even if the case was dropped because his girlfriend pulled out, the NBA and it's teams need to show they take the issue seriously with harsher punishments.

Do you get what I am saying now?

  I get that you're saying something that's different than what we were discussing. Who in this discussion was talking about Sully's punishment from the league?

[BballTim]

  His initial response wasn't "someone has to be knocked out for it to be DV". You seem to be stumbling upon a more reasonable inference later in your post (what Sully did wasn't as bad as what Rice did). That doesn't at all imply that what Sully did shouldn't be considered DV.

I was using a debate tactic. To try to understand why he wrote what he initially wrote. You know, like you did with the child abuse thing. His initial response was, in my opinion, dismissing the OP because he missed where Sully KO'd his girl. Never mind that people were outraged by the initial Rice suspension without even seeing how bad vid he abused Janay.

  I'm not sure that mis-characterizing what people say in order to cast aspersions on them really qualifies as a debate tactic. What I was doing with the child abuse thing was showing how ridiculous your claims were. And frankly I'm not sure what the big deal about the video is. Everyone knew that he knocked her out in the elevator.

[BballTim]

I really don't get the point of this thread

I don't either. People knew that domestic abuse was bad before the Ray Rice incident. The Sully incident received plenty of scrutiny.

So, let me get this straight, you wouldn't gently restrain your girlfriend if she went berserk and started slapping and hitting you? Sully made a wise decision and ended the dispute as peacefully as possible. It's just that women tend to over-dramatize.

Pointless thread.

I forgot the portion where Sullinger threw a punch that knocked out his girlfriend.

"domestic abuse " is a fuzzy term and you know it.

Wow with some of these responses. I understand some sports have predominately male fan bases, but some of these responses are just disturbing. No wonder society sweeps this issue under the rug. I hate that a gruesome video finally opened some peoples eyes.

Thank for this tread Desani. What Sullinger (and many other NBA players) have done is unacceptable. Does the NBA even have a domestic violence policy?

But I am not going to expect some Celtics fans to care. Some fans believe their players (esp fav one) can do no wrong. You see this with some Ravens fans.

I wouldn't be surprised if this thread gets locked.

well said.  . finally someone with sense on here. Yes, many fans of teams think their player can do no wrong. Sullinger did do wrong in this case. Even the FO  suspended him for the opener last year (should have been more games) even though there were no charges. It was a bad look for the team.

  I think the people with sense here are the ones that realizes that those responses don't all imply that Sullinger did no wrong.

[Ogaju]

It's wrong for someone to strike another person or animal. I don't think there's much argument here. The talk is more about how it's been handled by teams and leagues. From what I hear on TV it seems everyone is blaming the accused and their teams and leagues and demanding different actions.

That's easy to do, but this is a legal matter and it should be handled first by the Legal System in our country. The core of this system is everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

I have no first hand knowledge of any of the incidents mentioned. I didn't even know who Ray Rice is. All the talk is also made by people who were NOT there. Yes there are videos and Police Reports, but those of the public commenting on the issue still were NOT there.

Domestic and Animal Abuse is plain WRONG. But let the legal system handle.

We are focused on sports, but violence is part of our society. It goes on in small towns and huge corporations, just as it goes on in sports leagues. But the issue is more focused when a team or player we know is mentioned. We don't know the name of the guy in a large corporation who commits a similar crime. We do recognize the names of sports figures, but very few of us actually KNOW them.

If we can agree that Violence and Abuse are wrong and that the legal system should handle it, what should teams and leagues do about it. That's really up to them. Each team and league should handle it in their own way. If someone in a large corporation is accused of violence or abuse we will never hear about it and what the corporation does never makes the news. Teams and leagues have a more difficult job in handling this because an accusation against a player, for instance, is made so public. This is bad publicity for the teams. What they do needs to consider the affect on their businesses. (Large corps don't need to consider this because the publicity isn't there). The decision made by teams and leagues needs to consider their bottom lines. This includes the players whose salaries come from the league and vice versa.

What leagues and teams and player associations need to do is to do what's right and what is in the best interest of everyone (which usually comes down to doing what's right). This isn't that easy. The legal system needs to determine if a crime has been committed, not the teams or the public. The teams, league and player association then needs to make their decision.

Well thought out and written response. But the problem is that the legal system handles the domestic violence improperly as well. All Ray Rice got was anger management. Because of the NFL's popularity it can even check the courts and influence them as well. I hate that a scandal had to expose the issue on individual, organizational, societal, and institutional levels.

Misplaced anger all over the place. Problem will never be solved until all the stakeholders are ready to face some harsh truths. NFL in particular, you take kids from a very young age and you introduce them to a violent sport that has the sole means to the stated objective is hitting, blocking and more hitting. At a very young age, these kids are exposed to performance enhancing drugs and pain killers that have a deleterious effect on the central nervous system. I doubt that these kids that have been trained as 'gladiators' and heralded as such have the same respect or feelings for human beings and animals as most of the rest of society does. I remember the Miami Hurricane tight end (his name escapes me now) that went on the 'I am a soldier' steroid-induced tirade. He said 'its a war out there' and he was excoriated by the public and even his father who was a very good football player in his own right. Was he really wrong? He is on a field playing a game that requires the players to be 'armored' up and wear protective helmets more sturdy than motorcycle helmets. There are opponents attacking you at times with reckless abandon causing collisions that one player described as being in a series of motor vehicle accidents. In fact this particular kid had a season ending surgery requiring knee injury. Was he really wrong to make the war comparison? Are we all complicit when we cheer for the hits. When we watch silently as the injured players are catered to on the field and then carted off to our applause do we really care? If we do, why do we get right back to cheering once that player has left the field? Can we really expect these 'gladiators' that thrive on our cheers for the harder hits to behave like normal beings once off the field? You train brutes, yet think because you put them in an Armani suit turns them into gentlemen. Truth is you will never hear the truth from these players because everything is from the victim's perspective.

Instead of having Ray Rice come to the presser and express remorse and  claim that it was an isolated incident that will never happen again why don't you ask him what kind of vile hatred do you have for another human being that caused you to knock her out cold? Ask him to tell the truth and perhaps you will hear how he cannot even express what it is to love someone, he definitely is not happy with her. How do I know? You do not punch out someone you are happy with. If he is not happy with her, why is he with her? Hmmm. The answer to that is a whole new thread. Bottom line is problem will never be solved until you hear from all interested parties in society.  Again, with the NFL in particular and other violent sports it is more a reflection of the 'gladiators' we breed.

[Ogaju]

  His initial response wasn't "someone has to be knocked out for it to be DV". You seem to be stumbling upon a more reasonable inference later in your post (what Sully did wasn't as bad as what Rice did). That doesn't at all imply that what Sully did shouldn't be considered DV.

I was using a debate tactic. To try to understand why he wrote what he initially wrote. You know, like you did with the child abuse thing. His initial response was, in my opinion, dismissing the OP because he missed where Sully KO'd his girl. Never mind that people were outraged by the initial Rice suspension without even seeing how bad vid he abused Janay.

  I'm not sure that mis-characterizing what people say in order to cast aspersions on them really qualifies as a debate tactic. What I was doing with the child abuse thing was showing how ridiculous your claims were. And frankly I'm not sure what the big deal about the video is. Everyone knew that he knocked her out in the elevator.

No everyone did not know that. She appeared to be knocked out coming out of the elevator. In fact it has been said that one of the first people that attended to them after they came out of the elevator thought she was drunk. So when you see her appear to be unconscious she could have been 'faking' it, or she could have been shoved and hit her head knocking her unconscious. She could have slipped and fell. There was no certainty as to what happened in the elevator until the very graphic video showing the mayhem he unleashed on her.

[zimbo]

  I'm not sure how "these situations aren't the same" means "Sully is in the clear". Claiming that a comment about how one case of domestic violence can be worse than another automatically means that you don't think that anything less than the worse case is domestic violence is, in fact, ridiculous.

Okay, lemme see if I put it this way. Its not about the severity of the situation. It's about how Sully was disciplined by the NBA and the Celtics. He got ,what, 2 games out of an 82 game season? Even if the case was dropped because his girlfriend pulled out, the NBA and it's teams need to show they take the issue seriously with harsher punishments.

Do you get what I am saying now?

  I get that you're saying something that's different than what we were discussing. Who in this discussion was talking about Sully's punishment from the league?

What are we discussing here? I'm not debating the severity of domestic violence. I am about the sanctions for it.

[zimbo]

  His initial response wasn't "someone has to be knocked out for it to be DV". You seem to be stumbling upon a more reasonable inference later in your post (what Sully did wasn't as bad as what Rice did). That doesn't at all imply that what Sully did shouldn't be considered DV.

I was using a debate tactic. To try to understand why he wrote what he initially wrote. You know, like you did with the child abuse thing. His initial response was, in my opinion, dismissing the OP because he missed where Sully KO'd his girl. Never mind that people were outraged by the initial Rice suspension without even seeing how bad vid he abused Janay.

  I'm not sure that mis-characterizing what people say in order to cast aspersions on them really qualifies as a debate tactic. What I was doing with the child abuse thing was showing how ridiculous your claims were. And frankly I'm not sure what the big deal about the video is. Everyone knew that he knocked her out in the elevator.

Can he speak for himself or are you his spokesperson> It's weird debating something with the person who didn't say  the original comment. You act like you know for sure what he was talking about. I will not not continue to discuss this with a third party.

The child abuse thing was just a deflection. I still don't understand your point. But again you weren't the original person I was addressing. So I don't know where to go from here.

And no, everyone didn't know that he knocked her out in the elevator.

[BballTim]

  His initial response wasn't "someone has to be knocked out for it to be DV". You seem to be stumbling upon a more reasonable inference later in your post (what Sully did wasn't as bad as what Rice did). That doesn't at all imply that what Sully did shouldn't be considered DV.

I was using a debate tactic. To try to understand why he wrote what he initially wrote. You know, like you did with the child abuse thing. His initial response was, in my opinion, dismissing the OP because he missed where Sully KO'd his girl. Never mind that people were outraged by the initial Rice suspension without even seeing how bad vid he abused Janay.

  I'm not sure that mis-characterizing what people say in order to cast aspersions on them really qualifies as a debate tactic. What I was doing with the child abuse thing was showing how ridiculous your claims were. And frankly I'm not sure what the big deal about the video is. Everyone knew that he knocked her out in the elevator.

No everyone did not know that. She appeared to be knocked out coming out of the elevator. In fact it has been said that one of the first people that attended to them after they came out of the elevator thought she was drunk. So when you see her appear to be unconscious she could have been 'faking' it, or she could have been shoved and hit her head knocking her unconscious. She could have slipped and fell. There was no certainty as to what happened in the elevator until the very graphic video showing the mayhem he unleashed on her.

  I think you took "Everyone knew" a bit too literally. The large majority of people who were at all familiar with the case were well aware that Ray caused his girlfriend's unconsciousness.

[Eja117]

"Can we really expect these 'gladiators' that thrive on our cheers for the harder hits to behave like normal beings once off the field? You train brutes, yet think because you put them in an Armani suit turns them into gentlemen. "

Wait wait wait.  Don't we have actual soldiers in society that are actually trained to kill? Don't we have actual guards with actual weapons? Don't we have actual Secret Service members etc, that deal with actual violence and problems all the time? And by most measures aren't most of these people fairly well adjusted? Aren't many of them actually considered heroes and our finest? Yeah. I would say we probably can expect them to be fine individuals off the field.