OT: Rudy Fernandez reportedly punched in face by fan

I don't think he threw the ball at the guy on purpose. If you look, the referee is right in line and it looks more like he's tapping it to the ref and the Zalgiris player just puts his head in the way. Maybe I'm naive. Hey, remember this?

[video=youtube;kvecHAxvw6U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvecHAxvw6U[/video]

 

Punching Rudy's face is a travesty not seen since the Taliban tore down those Buddhist statues. Some things should be admired but not touched, no matter how hard it is to resist.
- My Wife

 

Isn't Zalgiris Kaunas the team Sabas owns?

 

Does that somehow make it okay?

 

That's exactly what I thought when I watched the video - that Rudy was just tossing the ball to the ref after the made FT and just happened to hit the opposing player in the head. The player took offense and things escalated.

Not sure about the spitting though. Did he actually spit, or was he taunting? I can't tell from the video. Neither one is cool, but to me, spitting on someone is much more disrespectful than shouting "scoreboard!" after a closely contested game.

BNM

 

That's not the right game, is it? The score of the game the day of the punch was 105-104.

I don't get the Rudy hate. Sure, he's a Euro-douche, but he was our Euro-douche, and we knew that he was a Euro-douche right from the get-go. He got hurt, tried to play through it, got hurt worse, had surgery, came back too soon because we needed him, and got hurt again. I don't blame him for not wanting to play alongside Brandon Roy and/or for Nate McMillan. I do blame him for how he handled not wanting to play here, but I'd put him on our team right now without blinking.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't think Rudy meant to hit that guy in the head, and I'd like to see better video of the so-called "spit." I think there's a reason that they chose to zoom in on Rudy and not the player sitting on the floor, and it's impossible to see that player's reaction. It looks to me like the guy took exception to whatever Rudy said right after the buzzer, then Rudy took exception to his taking exception...

 

Bro, he did it on purpose. And he spat at him, that's a fact. He appologized on twitter later, but was fined by the Euroleague. Rudy is a well know douche who is hated by pretty much everyone except his own fans. I don't know why, but this type of behaviour and flopping is very common with spanish bball and soccer players. I don't know how much of international sports u guys watch, but if u do watch any, that shouldn't come as surprise. It's just the way they are. And it's really frustrating, cuz otherwise they are very talented bunch.

 

Me neither. He gave up several million dollars to try the NBA experiment. When it became obvious that his role with McMillan was diminishing, he wanted to stop losing $3M per year and return to Europe. Or at least he wanted the Blazers to trade him, since we didn't use him, so he could try to make it in a different coach's system.

Irrationally, management insisted on his staying 1 extra year. As with every other Blazer trade, we waited past his peak value before trading. His agent thought this was crazy, because it was. It was stupid from the viewpoint of the Blazers' needs, and it also ruined his remaining window of time to increase his NBA value to a number anywhere close to the European offers he was getting. Blazer delay made it inevitable that he would accept a European offer a year later.

 

Bro, no he didn't. Got a link that shows he spit? The only apology I found he mentions only "the incident" and that the fans were Latvian, not Lithuanian...

 

Jankunas himself said he spat on it. And I've never seen him misbehave on court or accuse somebody of things like that.
Here's a read if u want. Can't find a clear link with video tho

http://www.talkbasket.net/7511-outcry-over-rudy-fernandez-unsportsmanlike-actions-vids.html

 

I don't watch any European sports, or soccer either. So, I'll defer to your judgement. I was just going by what I saw in the clip.

BNM

 

Real Madrid is Europe's Lakers, earning enmity from opposing fans and players for how the media treats them. The supposed spitting is not visible on the video. At 1:35 in, he has his back to the camera and cocks his head downward as if to spit on the floor. He is not near other players.

At the same 1:35 moment is the one important event. A giant low-pitched turtle kills the guy speaking and threatens humanity in a nasty foreign language, possibly Japanese like Reptilicus.