Dear Mr. Commissioner:

You think the show in The Palace the other night was something? No, not by a long shot. That it happened is not a suprise. That it took this long to happen – that is the surprise.

I mean, let’s be honest – your league has a serious punk problem on the floor, and liquoring up the locals in places like Detroit, well, that can’t be a good idea. Some fine folks go to pro sports games in this country, but in an arena holding 20K or more, it only takes 1% for things to get ugly.

Back in January of 2k1 I wrote a little column where I made some predictions about the coming century. Here was entry #2:

The first quarter of the century will see the assassination of a professional athlete during a competition. This will necessitate drastic new measures to insure the security of sports venues. In the case of more violent sports like football, the resulting tensions surrounding the game environment might actually have the effect of enhancing the atmosphere surrounding the event.

This is why the other night was nothing – nobody died.

However, the fact that nobody died was no fault of the NBA’s. Your league affords a ridiculous level of access to the floor, the players and the officials. And I know you’ve heard the name “Monica Seles,” too. Mr. Stern, if you don’t do something meaningful it won’t be a matter of if somebody will die at an NBA game, only when.

Here’s some unsolcited advice.

1: Put a few player heads on pikes and parade them around every locker room in the league. I know you’re going to land with both boots on Ron Artest. I’m sure he deserves everything you’re going to do to him – he’s one of the league’s premier punks, and it was his brain-dead, gratuitous little cheap shot at Ben Wallace with 45 seconds left in a game that was well over that got the dance started in the first place. The rumor floating around the Net as I write this entry says you’re going to pop him with a 30-game unpaid holiday, and from my perspective that’s actually about 50 games (plus postseason) on the light side. Wallace, O’Neal, Johnson, they’ll sit a few, too (although at this stage my solution would be to take whatever punishment you dish out and double it).

2: Do not rest until every Piston fan involved is in jail. You have lots of video, and the ticketing systems used by major arenas these days tell you who damned near everybody in the building was. Unless the culprits were single-game ticket buyers who paid with cash, the Detroit PD and the Pistons organization can find them. Do so, and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. The players’ actions were inexcusable, yes, but if you pegged me in the face with a cup of beer during the heat of a stressful moment like that, I might go off, too. I’m not excusing the players – I’m just saying we need to land on all guilty parties. If we don’t, it’s only a matter of time before American hoops becomes European soccer.

3. Take Marc Stein’s advice, only double it: make Detroit play its next two home games in an empty arena. You want to see a security problem in Motown get solved? Hit them in the wallet for two games’ revenue. Trust me, not only will this never happen in Detroit again, every other team in the league will take notice and make sure it doesn’t happen in their buildings, either.

Do it. Do it now. Don’t let your league be the one that makes my prediction come true.