It’s been well over a decade since the artist formally known as Ron Artest throttled a Detroit fan in the stands and sparked the infamous ‘Malice at the Palace’.
According to Stephen Jackson, a documentary outlining that horrifying November night in Auburn Hills could finally be in the works.
That is at least what his latest Instagram post suggests.
“Just talked to my brothers by proof not by talk,” Jackson said in the post, accompanied by a photo of him standing in courtroom with then Pacers teammates Artest and Jermaine O’Neal. “Nobody can tell the story better than us. We putting it together “The Brawl” coming soon. Some will understand some won’t. It’s time. #GBG who wants to see this?”
The brawl, which marks one of the darkest and most infamous nights in league history, has long been crying out for a documentary.
It was covered in vivid detail by Jonathan Abrams at Grantland, but a documentary was always going to be unlikely in the years immediately afterwards, with many of the brawl’s chief participants still in the league at the time.
Even now, it could prove difficult to produce a doc without the NBA agreeing to provide licensed footage, and the league’s bosses would presumably rather pierce their eyes with hot needles than publicise a disastrous event they’d worked so hard to put behind them.
But if Jackson’s vague teaser turns out to be legitimate despite all the potential roadblocks, we could be in for one hell of a viewing session.