This is garbage and the NBA is a thug sport.
If you or I did this we would get 3 years in jail for assault & battery.
The same could just be easily said about baseball or hockey.
Assault happens all over this country on a daily basis that never gets proscuted. Think about how many high schoolers each and everyday beat the snot out of each other and nothing happens.
So you take people that have that same menality and you put them in what you think is a "grown up" sport.. and you get the same results.
The fact of the matter is the fans got every bit of what they deserved.
Was is irresponsible? Yes. Was it stupid? Yes. Do they deserve to get suspended? Yes.
Would 3/4th's of American males got up and did the same thing that Artest did having being in an emotionally charged game and just after he got shoved around by another guy? Yes.
So the fact of the matter is you can call everyone in the NBA thugs and this and that and whatever you want.. but the truth of the matter is that is what we expect out of our athletes.. a win it all no matter what it takes attitude and that means getting in a mental position of "live or die" attitude.
YOu don't like it.. don't watch.. but don't act you are better than them.. you aren't.