Chris Copeland's Stabbing a Shot Across the Bow for NBA Players

One Indiana Pacer player lay in ICU in Bellevue Hospital with a punctured diaphragm and slashed elbow, while two Atlanta Hawks were arrested at the same crime scene outside a trendy Manhattan nightclub at 4 a.m. and charged with obstructing justice, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and second-degree harassment.

No, it couldn’t have been a worse day for the NBA.

Luckily, Chris Copeland of the Pacers is expected to fully recover from his stab wounds. The two Hawks, Thabo Sefolosha and Pero Antic, are contesting the misdemeanor charges that resulted when they didn’t follow orders as NYPD officers arrived to West 17th Street in Chelsea early Wednesday and attempted to establish a crime scene on the bloody sidewalk.

But this terrifying episode outside 1OAK, the worst the NBA has seen in years, is not going to result in the institution of a curfew for NBA players.

Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer has ruled out putting in a curfew and the players union says that any attempt by teams to try to restrict players’ comings and goings would have to be negotiated into the Collective Bargaining Agreement. As of now, there is nothing in the CBA that covers curfews and neither side seems remotely interested in going down that road.

“This was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,’’ said one union official.

It was the very wrong time, of course. They say nothing good happens after midnight and it was well past that point when Copeland, 31, and his ex-fiancee, Katrine Saltara, were allegedly attacked by a knife-wielding man, Shevoy Bleary-Murdock, 22, who was later charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

Copeland, an ex-Knick, released a statement Thursday thanking “everyone for their well wishes and prayers. “I’m overwhelmed with the outpouring of support. I look forward to coming back stronger than ever.’’

The league has been very fortunate that there hasn’t been more of these kinds of incidents, given that many of their players keep late hours. It’s an accepted part of the pro basketball culture that players roll into New York for games and take advantage of the City that Never Sleeps.

Sources say that players are sometimes informally warned about staying away from specific clubs and places where trouble might find them. But according to industry sources, 1OAK, a club frequented by A-list celebrities, is not one of those places.

Overall, players are their own and are expected to avoid the kind of volatile situations that erupted only seven hours before Copeland was due at the Pacers’ morning workout leading up their game against the Knicks in the Garden.

“You never want to put yourself in a position where you can bring negativity to yourself or the organization and your teammates,’’ said Budenholzer before his team, minus the two arrested players, defeated the Nets in Barclays Center. “But they are great guys and I think right now it’s most important to support them.’’

Earlier, Budenholzer reminded the rest of the Hawks what is expected of them when they go out on the town. But as for limiting their hours, he and other coaches, including the Knicks’ Derek Fisher, just don’t see the need because they are dealing with grown men. Players are treated exactly like adults in other professions and other walks of life, including Wall Street bankers, which is exactly how it should be.

“We’re talking about adult men,” Fisher told reporters in the Garden before the Knicks fell to Copeland’s Pacers. “I don’t think you get into defining what time guys go to bed or what time they have to be in their hotel room necessarily. Every guy’s different. . . . It’s about your performance in the game, your performance at practice, the things that the team requires you to do and how you handle yourself in between that. It depends on how it impacts your performance in terms of how involved we need to be.’’

They don’t need to be involved now, but what happened to Copeland should be taken as a warning shot across the players’ bows.

Longtime New York columnist Mitch Lawrence continues to write about pro basketball, as he’s done for the last 22 years. His columns for NBCNewYork.com on the Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and the NBA, along with other major sports, will appear twice weekly. Follow him on Twitter @Mitch _ Lawrence
 

Contact Us