Metta World Peace Suspended 7 Games For Elbow To James Harden

Published: 24^th Apr 12 6:48 pm

by Riley Schmitt
Big 10 Editor, NBA Featured Columnist

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Metta World Peace Suspended 7 Games For Elbow To James Harden

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RT @NBAPR: Lakers’ Metta World Peace suspended seven games it was announced by the NBA.

April 24, 2012 6:45 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@SekouSmithNBA

Sekou Smith

We all saw this coming. Metta World Peace (or Ron Artest if you feel that way) had the hammer dropped on him by NBA commissioner David Stern. The Los Angeles Lakers forward was suspended seven games for his vicious elbow to the head of Oklahoma City Thunder guard James Harden.

Harden was diagnosed with a concussion and no one knows when he will return to action. He is a key player for the Thunder and their title hopes are hurt if he has to miss a significant amount of time. Harden has been coming in to his own this season and was playing great ball. Hopefully this concussion does not side track his career.

As for Metta World Peace, he deserved to be suspended. He has gotten better over the last couple of years, but he still has outbursts. This was certainly a bad outburst. The thing is, he probably would have elbowed anyone who bumped him there. He was not happy about being touched. Harden was in the wrong place at the exact wrong time.

If World Peace comes back rusty, the Lakers are in trouble. They need him to make a run to a title. Without him, they are not deep enough to make a playoff push. Their fate would probably be about the same as last year. Second round exists are not tolerated in LA. However, that is looking like it will be the case this year, with or without an sane World Peace. Hopefully this incident is never repeated and we can all move on.

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