Isaiah Stewart is not someone I would want to punch in the face. In fact, I would actively avoid punching him in the face by almost any means necessary. LeBron James seems to be a smart and sensible man on and off the basketball court, and yet he punched Stewart. And to be honest, it looked intentional, or at least he intended some degree of malice.
You can decide for yourself, but King James definitely wanted to make some contact with Beef Stew’s face.
Stewart, rightfully so, took exception to LeBron hitting him with a cheap shot. The yelling and the mild shoving were deserved, but the attack that Stewart waged was not. Stewart ran after James three times, knocking over coaches and teammates in the process until he was finally grabbed and dragged into the locker room by what looked like the entire team. You can watch the full altercation here, although if you’re sensitive to blood maybe just take my word for it that it was quite the scuffle.
As you can see, it took nearly everyone in the arena to hold Stewart back. There’s a lot to be said about the fight and what it means for the Pistons, here are some things that stand out.
Isaiah Stewart is a Bad Man
And I mean that in the best way possible. Was it childish and dangerous to keep attacking the most famous athlete in America? Yup, it was, but if he can tone down the anger and just play some physical basketball it’s a sign that Beef Stew can be a hero in Detroit for a decade.
It takes a lot of gall to run after someone after being stopped twice, but he did just that. Clearly, Stew is not afraid to throw his body around in the paint to get some rebounds, and anyone doubting if his size can make him a real threat in the paint just needs to watch him go after LeBron, no individual could have stopped him at all. Detroit has a history of embracing enforcers on the basketball court. Bill Laimbeer is a Pistons legend, mostly for altercations just like this.
The era of tough basketball filled with fights has been over for nearly 20 years. In fact, it died in Detroit after the Malice. But as with any contact sport, people get hit and people get hurt, and some people chose to retaliate. Be it worth it or not, emotions run hot. It’s good to know that potential stars like Cade Cunningham and Killian Hayes (who I’m holding out will be the next Jason Kidd) have a fearless big behind them.
Cade Cunningham is the Pistons’ leader
You know we had to make this fight about how great Cade is, right? Cunningham is by no means a small guy, but he’s certainly smaller than Isaiah Stewart. He held him back for most of the altercation, and when Stewart broke free for the final time Cade was chasing him down and eventually wrapped him up. It was quite the run, Stewart was breaking tackles left and right, but he was finally subdued by the rookie.
Oh, also Cunningham had his first career triple-double, which weirdly is not the biggest story coming out of this game, but when there’s a fight like we haven’t seen in years, it makes sense.
Based on tonight and tonight alone, Cade is a guy who will put up All-Star numbers, go to bat for his teammates, but also play with the sensibility one would expect from a tried and true veteran like LeBron James. Apparently, that’s asking too much from the King though. Dwane Casey was also impressive during the fight. Casey is an average-sized 64-year old. I’m an in-shape college student but I would absolutely not get in Stewart’s way out of fear for my own safety. Sure, one could argue that there’s no way that Stewart would bulldoze his coach, but at least one member of the Pistons’ staff was thrown to the ground.
Maybe Isaiah Stewart was Justified?
In the initial scuffle, it looked like Stewart and LeBron would separate amicably. The two were not even shoving each other, just exchanging words. At one point, it looked like Stewart thought something said was even funny to him. And then everything went to hell.
Personally, I think the outburst was not warranted, based on all the videos I saw. I could not read Stewart’s lips for the most part, and there is no way to tell what LeBron said. But maybe James called Stewart something unforgivable in the heat of the moment, and maybe it wasn’t the punch that set Stewart off. There’s no way to tell yet if LeBron said anything, and it is just speculation, but based on the brief pause in the action before everything took off, I think LeBron may have crossed a line.
In the video below, you can definitely see James crack a joke right before the camera hops to an angle over his shoulder. Maybe what James thought was funny set Stewart off in ways we haven’t seen yet?
I highly doubt any professional would attempt an attack three times over a punch while going for a board. To be fair, Stewart was very much bloodied up so maybe the taste of his own blood set him off, there’s no way to know. Maybe something was said, maybe it was just a gross overreaction.
Hopefully, the spat is the spark the Pistons need to jumpstart a lackluster season. Hopefully, both parties receive the suspensions they deserve, although Stewart’s will no doubt be longer than LeBron’s. Both deserve to miss some games. Since the Malice at the Palace of 2004, Pistons fans have a reputation as unruly at best, but they heeded the warnings about staying in their seats, so at least the fan base looks good. At the end of the day, I still have more questions than answers, but it certainly showed off the fire this young team has burning.