Ok I am an athlete at the college level. When any athlete sees the threat of being attack by fans, they think of monica seles and others that have been attacked by fans in the past. On field security is rather mediocre for basketball, baseball, and a lot of other sports, which means the athelte in many cases is better off defending and retaliating against the fans, or at least hiding. In basketball, there is no hiding from fan attacks, where baseball players can hide from pissed off fans throwing crap on the field by going to the dugouts. So what i am getting at is that artest would have probably been attacked by other fans if he did not go into the stands himself and take out the guy next to idiot who threw crap at him, while still getting clubbed in the head by that idiot