ry Johnson marred the 1998 playoffs (even if the two players' wild swings at each other all missed their mark), the NBA remains far less violent than any of the other major American professional sports--football and hockey (which glorify violence and use it to draw fans), and even baseball (which includes pitchers throwing at batters, batters charging pitchers, collisions at the bases, and a full-blown battle involving all players of both teams now and again).
Mourning and Johnson, two of the top players on their teams, were suspended for two games and fined thousands of dollars, despite the fact they did not even hit one another. A third player was suspended for a game merely for leaving the bench during the fight, an NBA violation strictly enforced. Any single play in the National Football League features more physical violence than an entire season of NBA basketball, and every game in the Nat
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