Stretching the Field: NBA has no room for brawls

Who doesn't enjoy watching two grown men throwing fists in the ring, octagon, football field or on the ice?

But on parquet floors in an NBA arena?

There's no room for it.

It takes forever to close a game out in the NBA anyway, especially if it's close and each team still has timeouts. Twenty seconds can take an eternity. And that doesn't even include referees coming together at the scorer's table to review a play.

Players exchanging blows may be entertaining for some, but it wouldn't solve anything. The 1990s hip hop group Naughty By Nature may go by the belief to "guard your grill, knuckle up," but fighting never solves anything.

Two men fighting on a playing field would receive penalties, fines and possibly suspensions. Two men fighting in the parking lot of Walmart are spending the night in jail with numerous court and hospital costs.

Washington Wizards big man Marcin Gortat recently had a Q&A with Kyle Weidie on TrueHoop and said the NBA should loosen its rules for fighting. Really? It's understandable since Gortat's been around boxing his entire life and has an intimidating 6-foot-11, 240-pound frame. Not too many people, if any, want to take a shot to the face from Gortat, who uses boxing in his training.

When asked about fighting during the game, Gortat said, "Quick, 15-20 seconds, throw few punches, then referees jump in and break this thing up. I think the game ... these two guys, they resolved their problem."

Gortat told Weidie it would be a "pretty cool idea."

Yeah, maybe for him.

"Because today you go to an ice hockey game, and the one thing they're waiting for is a fight, you know what I'm saying? So if they could set it up something like that in the NBA. That if there are two guys and they have a problem, if they could just separate everybody."

We've seen what happens when keeping it real goes wrong (thank you, Dave Chappelle) and just have to think back to the scuffle at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The Knicks and Heat came to blows in the past, the same goes for Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman. Or Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal scrapping under the hoop. Now the two are friends and analysts for TNT.

You can see the fracas here.

Tempers are always going to flare in the NBA and players are going to get hit whether it's intentional or not. Remember Jose Barea driving the lane and taking a blatant elbow to the body from Andrew Bynum? It happens and there's no end in sight when it comes to hard fouls, especially in the paint.

Just this week, Los Angeles Clippers superstar Blake Griffin got tangled up with P.J. Tucker of the Phoenix Suns and a mini scuffle ensued. Tucker took a swing at Griffin, who's been a target from several opponents, probably because he makes guys look foolish with monster jams and alley-oops.

"(I) just got pulled to the ground and I guess he didn't like that," Griffin said afterward. "I don't know, I haven't really seen it, I haven't really looked at it, it's hard to tell while it's happening."

Nobody wants to get posterized and embarrassed, but it's still cool to watch.

Letting NBA players duke out their differences could be cool, too, but it will never be a mainstay in the sport. Just imagine pituitary cases dropping the gloves, so to speak, like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. It's a scary thought simply because of the size and strength of these men.

Maybe a pay-per-view special between Griffin and Gortat could be set up. I would pony up the dough to see that.

Those are just pipe dreams and so is Gortat's fantasy of throwing down in the heat of the moment.

[SportsNetwork.com]