Whatever, I’m willing to take the hit.

All I ask is that you be aware that in the absence of knowledge our perceptions can be deceiving, and that we do not have your perspective.

I will try to give you the benefit of the doubt.

drama every year before the season starts.It’s a tradition.

Yeah, I can understand racially charged insults angering him. That’s perfectly understandable. I know I’d be super mad if I were him.

I understand that some people may disagree with me, but he should have not made it a “mano a mano” type thing. He should have just got them banned from the bar by talking to the owner instead of putting himself in such a dangerous/uncontrollable situation. Hopefully he’ll learn from this ugly occurance. Did they deserve to be punched in the face? Sure. But you never know who’s got a gun, you never know who’s got something to prove, you never know what’s going to happen once things get started, and Anthony had far, far more to lose than this idiot heckling him. He’s lucky he’s not being prosecuted for assault and sued or injured, or worse.

Some things are worth fighting back against, being racially attacked is certainly one of them, but there are better ways to go about it than punching a stranger in the face.

It just means you’d punch a stranger in the face for shouting words at you. You’re not the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Did they deserve it? From accounts here (which are filtered through the Warriors and AR bias we’ve got here), it seems like they did. Did Anthony escalate it to a physical level? Yes, and people have been shot for less.

Standing up for yourself is one thing, but escalating a volatile situation is almost never a good idea.

Personal experience:

Some kids started harassing my friends and I, focusing on one of us in particular for no apparent reason. Later, somehow they thought I was him, tried to take my backpack, and eventually gave me a good right cross to the jaw. They then realized that I wasn’t the guy they were harassing and actually apologized (very weird…) and ran ahead to harass this guy again. Eventually they pulled out a knife and started threatening him with it. Another one of our friends saw us being harassed from across the street and literally sprinted over between the guy and his assailants, not knowing there was a knife out. Nobody ended up getting hurt, but what would have happened if I’d started throwing punches? Would I still be standing here? I may have been punked, but I didn’t get serious injured.

There’s a lot more to life than “standing up for yourself.” When you’re a professional athlete at some random bar and some random guys are heckling you, is it really worth the risk to punch one of them in the face not knowing who they are and whether they’re packing heat? I say no, you’ve got more important things to live for than punching some random stranger in the nose. You clearly have a different perspective.