Marcus Smart pushed a fan

[greg683x]

Yup. Because we all let people call us piece of crap all the time and just walk away.  Why don't they just drop this Orr guy off in the middle of a Cowboys sports bar, make sure everyone knows who he is and tell him "Hey. Whatever happens just walk away".

Orr is a piece of crap. Give Smart a medal and sportsmanship of the Year award.

no in an average situation you dont get to call someone a piece of crap and walk away.  But in regards to stuff college or professional athletes get called at games 'piece of crap' doesnt even cause a tremor on the richter scale.  Heckling on the scale of calling someone a piece of crap will NEVER go away, it's part of the game, it's part of playing on the road.  Racial Slurs yes thats whole other level, but piece of crap???  he didnt even curse for christs sake.  Whats he gonna do when someone says something about his mother or his sister?  It's only gonna get worse when he gets to the NBA.  He better take the games in Philly off.

So I gotta cry or suspend a guy if a punk fan in Philly gets pushed? Big deal. Orr is a piece of crap and got caught.

Im not denying that Orr is a piece of crap or got what he deserves.  The problem is Smarts reaction to such a small verbal jab.  If all he did was push someone for calling him a piece of crap whats gonna happen when someone does say something about his mother?? 

if you tell Smart he was right and did nothing wrong hes never gonna learn to tune those people out.

Whether it's justified or not do you want us to spend a high draft pick on a guy that lets fans get to him and will push and shove spectators when they call him a piece of crap??  That could have been a 15 or 20 game suspension in the NBA.

I don't think Smart is dumb enough to cost himself that much money.  I'm not picking an inferior player because the other players don't stick up for themselves and he does. I'd be more concerned if he has gang affiliations and whatnot. Aaron Hernandez never went after a fan either. M Smart just did what tons of people would do.

Marcus did what tons of people do, and did what no professional would do.  You really think getting called a piece of crap would set even the weakest pro off??  youre dreaming.  Youre right this is a far cry from any kind of Hernandez type of trouble, and no it wont knock him out of the lottery, or even the top 10.  But if a GM is unsure about whether to take him or one of the other top 5 guys, it made their decision a lot easier.

[greg683x]

Im not denying that Orr is a piece of crap or got what he deserves.  The problem is Smarts reaction to such a small verbal jab.  If all he did was push someone for calling him a piece of crap whats gonna happen when someone does say something about his mother?? 

You really think that's all that happened? Or, that's all Smart thought he heard? I think there are some pretty galling leaps of faith there.

thats all you can plainly hear in this video, he says it right when smart comes crashing in, and smart goes after him right after he says it.  Is it concrete proof??  no.  but its pretty convincing, at least in my opinion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tqqJ_h7ak

[slamtheking]

Im not denying that Orr is a piece of crap or got what he deserves.  The problem is Smarts reaction to such a small verbal jab.  If all he did was push someone for calling him a piece of crap whats gonna happen when someone does say something about his mother?? 

You really think that's all that happened? Or, that's all Smart thought he heard? I think there are some pretty galling leaps of faith there.

thats all you can plainly hear in this video, he says it right when smart comes crashing in, and smart goes after him right after he says it.  Is it concrete proof??  no.  but its pretty convincing, at least in my opinion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tqqJ_h7ak

I couldn't hear anything plainly in the video.  not sure how anyone can draw any conclusions from that audio

[indeedproceed]

Im not denying that Orr is a piece of crap or got what he deserves.  The problem is Smarts reaction to such a small verbal jab.  If all he did was push someone for calling him a piece of crap whats gonna happen when someone does say something about his mother?? 

You really think that's all that happened? Or, that's all Smart thought he heard? I think there are some pretty galling leaps of faith there.

thats all you can plainly hear in this video, he says it right when smart comes crashing in, and smart goes after him right after he says it.  Is it concrete proof??  no.  but its pretty convincing, at least in my opinion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tqqJ_h7ak

You hear one guy say 'piece of crap'. If you watch the video from the other angle, in the spot where the guy is saying piece of crap, Smart is still on the ground. Then, you can see him start to get out of the fray (after being called a piece of crap), and go after the guy. I don't think the video is compelling at all. You can hear one guy say 'piece of crap', was he the only guy heckling Smart? Of course not. In a raucous arena while the phone is buried under persons, it's pretty far from compelling.

Keep in mind though, I'm not saying Smart was justified. I don't think there is really any time when an athlete can go assault fans and it should be 'okay'. But I don't think this video is conclusive at all to what was actually said.

[greg683x]

Im not denying that Orr is a piece of crap or got what he deserves.  The problem is Smarts reaction to such a small verbal jab.  If all he did was push someone for calling him a piece of crap whats gonna happen when someone does say something about his mother?? 

You really think that's all that happened? Or, that's all Smart thought he heard? I think there are some pretty galling leaps of faith there.

thats all you can plainly hear in this video, he says it right when smart comes crashing in, and smart goes after him right after he says it.  Is it concrete proof??  no.  but its pretty convincing, at least in my opinion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tqqJ_h7ak

I couldn't hear anything plainly in the video.  not sure how anyone can draw any conclusions from that audio

i could pretty plainly hear piece of crap.  But yes, who knows what preceded that or if it was even Orr that said that.  Like I said, it's not 100% proof that Orr is telling the truth, but it gives his story more substance than it had before.  At least for me it did, bc when I first heard that Orr claimed thats all he said, I didnt believe it for a second.

[CoachBo]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Reminds me of a dark corner of journalism I teach in college classes, known as "the journalism of affirmation" - where people aren't interested in being informed, merely in having their preconceived notions affirmed, evidence be darned.

A player with anger issues - and now dishonesty issues - isn't welcome on the Boston Celtics, as far as I am concerned, and certainly not with a meaningful draft pick.

[Fafnir]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Reminds me of a dark corner of journalism I teach in college classes, known as "the journalism of affirmation" - where people aren't interested in being informed, merely in having their preconceived notions affirmed, evidence be darned.

A player with anger issues - and now dishonesty issues - isn't welcome on the Boston Celtics, as far as I am concerned, and certainly not with a meaningful draft pick.

I watched the video it proves someone called him a piece of crap, however the timing is off for it to be what the fan who was near Smart to have said that.

You're already thinking Marcus Smart is a bad character and you aren't analyzing the evidence beyond the fact its been offered. Affirmation indeed!

I don't want Smart because I don't think he'll be a franchise level PG and you'd have to be a franchise one for me to draft you and then move on from Rondo.

[Eja117]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Reminds me of a dark corner of journalism I teach in college classes, known as "the journalism of affirmation" - where people aren't interested in being informed, merely in having their preconceived notions affirmed, evidence be darned.

A player with anger issues - and now dishonesty issues - isn't welcome on the Boston Celtics, as far as I am concerned, and certainly not with a meaningful draft pick.

How on Earth does the player have dishonesty issues? We have the fan admitting he feels bad for something he did. We have piece of crap on tape. We have other fans/people saying it was racial. We have the player himself clearly bothered by the event at the moment it happens. We have other athletes saying this fan is like this all the time. At this point it's starting to look like the player found himself in an entire hostile crowd shouting racial taunts and other and all he did was push they guy...and now he's suspended and has a dishonesty problem?

At this point I would prefer my kid definitely not go to either school. One taunts kids and the other doesn't stick up for them

[barefacedmonk]

I pushed a fan and I liked it...

[Mencius]

...At this point it's starting to look like the player found himself in an entire hostile crowd shouting racial taunts ...

As if there's a scintilla of evidence to support this. 

The only bit of evidence supports what the fan said he said.  It contradicts what Smart said he said.  Perhaps something more definitive will become available, but this, so far, is it.

If this is it, it's not exactly wishing him health and happiness, but it's a far cry from evil racist Texans shouting racist epithets.  Let's see if anything further surfaces.

[PhoSita]

The race card is constantly played, and is ridiculous. So if he had insulted the guy's mother it would or would not have been okay to "shove or worse"? Or if he had called Marcus "not so" Smart some other expletive that would have made shoving the guy okay?

The fact that you seem to think the examples you gave are even close to equivalent to "go back to Africa N---" or whatever awful crap the fan said suggests that you really have no idea how serious an issue racism still is today.

[PhoSita]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Pardon me, but in these situations I think it's probably better to support the person who doesn't have every societal advantage I can think of already working in his favor.

[Mencius]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Pardon me, but in these situations I think it's probably better to support the person who doesn't have every societal advantage I can think of already working in his favor.

So you advocate supporting people or not based upon their race. 

Here's a crazy thought.  You could remain neutral in the absence of facts and let them move you as they come in.

[PhoSita]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Pardon me, but in these situations I think it's probably better to support the person who doesn't have every societal advantage I can think of already working in his favor.

So you advocate supporting people or not based upon their race. 

Here's a crazy thought.  You could remain neutral in the absence of facts and let them move you as they come in.

I'm suggesting that there are inherent biases in favor of the rich white man yelling in the stands at work here already, and so it would be best to push ourselves to have some empathy and sympathy for the young black man being heckled and now made out to be a hoodlum, or at the very least a spoiled hot-head, because he allowed a likely racist blowhard to get the better of him.


You can't make racism go away by making yourself blind to race.  The externalities at play still exist whether you ignore them or not.

[Roy H.]

The leaps some of you are willing to make to exonerate Smart - in the face of contradictory evidence - are quite amazing.

Pardon me, but in these situations I think it's probably better to support the person who doesn't have every societal advantage I can think of already working in his favor.

So you advocate supporting people or not based upon their race. 

Here's a crazy thought.  You could remain neutral in the absence of facts and let them move you as they come in.

I'm suggesting that there are inherent biases in favor of the rich white man yelling in the stand at work already, and so it would be best to push ourselves to have some empathy and sympathy for the young black man being heckled and now made out to be a hoodlum because he allowed a likely racist blowhard get the better of him.

I guess I agree with others that, in the absence of evidence, it's hard to project the guy as "likely racist". 

My guess is that, in terms of inherent biases, most people on this blog would already empathize with the young athlete over the rich booster.  However, labeling the guy who was pushed as a racist, when the only audio evidence we have supports his story, just seems like buying into a pre-conceived notion (much like repeating the "Go back to Africa" thing, which the article IP posted above pretty much debunked as nothing more than amateur lip-reading.

I agree with Mencius:  it's best to wait for the facts to come out.  What we know so far, in terms of facts, are that the fan has a history of being a loud mouth and the player has a history of at least one recent over-the-top angry outburst.  That being the case, I'd say it's 50/50 in terms of whose story to believe here.