The NBA is too soft. That’s what some critics of the league have been saying for the better part of the last two decades, which have coincided with a more polished player in the era of LeBron James. Ever since the league made a conscious effort to “clean” its image following the Malice at the Palace, and players took more interest in their personal brands in the age of social media, tough guys were essentially legislated out of the game.
It didn’t hurt that overall skill levels were improving too. There simply wasn’t room for enforcer types anymore. As players opted to avoid fines and suspensions, what used to be full-on brawls turned into small dust-ups. A league once criticized for having a “thug” image (read: too Black) got labeled as soft almost overnight.
Enter Isaiah Stewart. We have enough data points to conclude he wants all the smoke.
Funny enough, the latest incident to suggest Stewart is with the sh… well, you know – didn’t start with Stewart at all. It was Donte DiVincenzo, who roughed up Pistons rookie Ron Holland to spark a brawl between Detroit and the Minnesota Timberwolves. But if it’s a scrap involving the Pistons, Stewart is never too far. Of course, he was one of the seven people ultimately ejected from the game.
It’s too fitting that our first real introduction to Stewart’s temper came in his rage-filled attempt to get after the poster boy for the NBA’s polished image, LeBron James himself. It was a little over three years ago when a bloodied Stewart tried to fight through an entire army of people to do god-knows-what to the chosen one and undo 20 years of good PR in one fell swoop. By the time he was arrested for assault for punching Drew Eubanks last February, Stewart’s reputation as a certified hot-head was well established.
Even after all that, I’m not sure we realized just how unhinged Stewart truly is until earlier this year when he started jawing at the NBA’s resident black-belt James Johnson – a man who believes he can beat UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones in a fight. A man who we thought to be the NBA’s last real enforcer. We now know that’s not the case. Stewart, too, is a stay-ready All-Star, and he apparently serves a similar purpose for the Pistons.
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Stewart also plays a basketball role for Detroit, but it’s clear he’s there to also do exactly what he did Sunday, stand up for his teammates. If not, the Pistons would do more in the way of suspensions to calm him down. Instead, he’s been suspended just six games in five years since being drafted in 2020, according to Spotrac. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Detroit maybe even encourages him. This is, after all, the same franchise that won championships with an identity of toughness; the bad boy Pistons. Stewart almost embodies Detroit basketball.
“That instance is one of those things where when you play the way that we play, you earn a reputation, you’re going to be tested and guys think that’s what they have to do,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said of Sunday’s melee. “You regret where all of it took place. That’s not something you ever want to see happen, but again, I thought our guys stood their ground and defended each other and had each other’s back. And those are non-negotiables in our locker room is that you stand your ground and that you defend one another and have each other’s backs, and I thought our guys did that tonight.”
Whether or not Stewart’s bully attitude is good for the NBA is up for debate, but with him to enforce toughness for a Pistons team that’s good again, other teams will be incentivized to find their own versions of Stewart. If that happens, it’s going to be hard to keep calling the NBA soft.
