Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla needs an NBA history lesson

Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said something really crazy recently. Later he tried to clarify what he said, but the clarification was still kind of crazy. By saying what he said, Mazzulla demonstrated both a lack of historical knowledge of his own league and how race works in America.

During a radio interview on Tuesday, Mazzulla said the NBA needs to bring back the fight. You read that correctly. It is true that Mazzulla is a strange bird who says strange things, but even to him this was a wild bird. It led to countless headlines across the country. Listen to that part of the interview for yourself:

“The biggest thing we’re robbing people of from an entertainment standpoint is you can’t fight anymore. I wish we could bring fighting back,” Mazzulla said on NBC Sports Boston. “What’s more fun than a little scuffle? How come they’re allowed to clear the benches in baseball? How come they’re allowed to fight in hockey?

“I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand why some sports are allowed to clear the benches. They have bats and weapons (in baseball). We don’t. We have a ball. The other sport (hockey) has one of the hardest playing surfaces and a puck and a stick. And yet we’re not allowed to throw it down a little bit?”

Mazzulla tried to clarify what he said on Wednesday, explaining that he was not advocating legalizing the fight. Instead, if Boston.com reported: Mazzulla said his comments were more about the way fouls are called. Mazzulla later added in part, “We have to be okay with a little bit of conflict, that’s how I would put it.”

Even his revised comments are problematic (and don’t actually seem that revised). He doesn’t seem to understand why the NBA is different and needs to be different, and in many ways is forced to be different.

Let’s focus on one thing Mazzulla said during his original radio interview: I just don’t understand why some sports are allowed to empty the benches.

The answer is not complicated. A lot of it comes down to history and race. Like so many other things in life, they are intertwined.

Let me explain. Fighting in the NBA has long been seen as different from fighting in other sports. In hockey it is seen as part of the sport. Same with baseball. But of course it is more than that.

White people who fight in a sport are simply seen as different than people of color who do it. Especially black athletes, and especially black NBA players. This isn’t even a controversial thing. It’s something that normal people living on earth just know to be true. This type of double standard has been discussed for decades. When black players fight, they are thugs and thugs. When white players do it, it’s fiery and competitive. It is even seen as extremely entertaining.

There was a classic moment 10 years ago when former Seattle cornerback turned commentator Richard Sherman spoke about this topic in a smart and blunt way that few have ever done in public. In fact, few athletes in the recent history of American sports have spoken so fearlessly about race. Sherman once sat on a panel and was asked about the double standard of black professional athletes fighting in competitions versus white ones.

‘It’s almost the angry black man syndrome, especially football players’ said Sherman. “I couldn’t imagine that if a huge brawl took place on a football field, what the consequences would be, what the reactions would be. There was just a huge brawl in baseball, a huge brawl. I haven’t heard anything about it since.”

Former Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, also on the panel, added, “Hockey, they fight every day.”

“There was a day they broke a record,” Sherman replied. “She knocked the puck away two seconds in a game. Everyone said, ‘Man, this is good hockey.'”

“The referees are skating around and just looking at it,” Foster said. “When we fight, it’s like ‘those animals.'”

“That’s the frustrating part, the double standard, the triple standard,” Sherman said. “The way an athlete is looked at. The way an African American athlete is looked at in football or basketball, the predominantly African American sports. Just a fight. Imagine a fight happening in football, and imagine the coverage.”

Nothing has changed since Sherman said these things.

It is incomprehensible that Mazzulla does not know all this. I don’t believe Mazzulla’s ‘clarification’ either. I think what he said during that original interview is exactly what he meant.

More fights in the NBA, or more “conflicts,” would lead to black players being called thugs in the sport. It would dramatically reduce the sport’s popularity, which is now remarkably high. How do I know this? Because it’s happened before.

The NBA of the 1970s was full of fights (and drugs) and the perception of the sport was so problematic that the league nearly collapsed. The average attendance for that decade was about 8,000 fans per game. The TV viewing figures were dismal. The on-court violence of that era was symbolized during a game between the Rockets and Lakers in 1977. Rudy Tomjanovich tried to stop a fight when he was punched by Kermit Washington. Tomjanovich had his skull, cheekbone and nose broken. It was one of the ugliest moments in sports history.

The players’ self-inflicted damage from constant fighting, combined with the racism of fans and some in the media, nearly sunk the league.

“To say I didn’t get a great response from potential sponsors would be the nicest way to put it,” said former NBA executive Rick Welts in the ESPN documentary “Basketball: A Love Story.” “If I could get an appointment, it was about 15 minutes of ‘Why would anyone in their right mind want to be associated with your league?’”

That’s what the battle entailed.

None of this even includes 2004’s Malice at the Palace. Afterwards, the entire player base, not just the participants in the brawl, was labeled as criminals by many in the media.

The competition may be ‘soft’ for some, but the game is stunning and beautiful. It’s a fast-paced, futuristic sport that brings people together from all over the world.

No more ‘conflict’ is needed. No arguing is needed to make it great. It already is.