Stop me if you've heard it....
Why did Ron Artest leave the game early?

(He wanted to beat the crowd!)

Ron Artest, a priest, a rabbi and Saddam Hussein walk into a bar.

The bartender sez "WTF is this? Some kind of joke??!"

Oh. I thought this topic was going to be another crack on Violet Palmer...

I hope you're not talking smack about V. I've met her, worked in front of her and watched her work a lot. She's the real deal. And on top of that, she's a genuinely good person.

Gee, I don't think that Bill Simmons agrees with you:

"Nobody has ever been worse at her job- not even the people who work at Home Depot selling Christmas trees. Note: when Violet started officiating a few years ago, she was so incompetent, players and coaches actually avoided arguing with her. Whenever she screwed up, they would always glance around helplessly, the same way that you would if your puppy dropped a deuce on the living room carpet. But now she's been around for a few years and people are fed up. On Monday night, Doc Rivers was one bad Violet call away from ending up in a white Bronco with Al Cowlings". :D

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/041217

Note that the Artest joke above came outa this column too.

I like Bill Simmons, although I haven't read his column in several months. He's funny, kind of witty, and is a fellow die-hard Sox fan. But he knows exactly nothing about officiating. He harps on NBA officials almost as much as Tommy Heinsohn.

People refrain from arguing with V, not out of confusion or "helplessness", but b/c she is so good at diffusing confrontations. You go to her with a complaint and she brings the conflict level way down very quickly. She just has that ability in her personality. Wish I had it.

Well V was completely useless and unsuccessful in attempting to separate Caron Butler and Dan Dickau. She has neither the size nor the strength for that task, and it was amusing to see her running away from the situation while many other players were rushing towards it.

creative and a nice little piece, but...

fray

Neither does Dick Bavetta, but who cares? Size and strength look good, but are irrelevant to officiating.

And I don't think she was "running away" from the confrontation. She actually moved to them, but then realized she shouldn't get between them and backed off. She wasn't running away from anything.