Two teams in New York for games Wednesday night have had players involved in an incident at the 1 OAK nightclub in the upscale Chelsea section on Manhattan’s West Side.
Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland was stabbed in the abdomen during an argument with his wife shortly before the club was closing at 4 a.m. Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News. His wife, Katrine Saltara, was also slashed in the arm and the leg and a woman described as a friend of the assailant, 53-year-old Catherine Somani, was slashed in the abdomen.
More from NBA
- The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
- Constructing the NBA’s perfect all-under-25 starting five
Shezoy Bleary, 22, was arrested and identified by police as the attacker. Copeland and Saltara were rushed to Bellevue Hospital and are reportedly in stable condition with non-life threatening injuries.
Charges against Bleary are pending, but police reportedly recovered a knife at the scene.
But here’s where the incident goes from strange to bizarre.
Two members of the Atlanta Hawks, center Pero Antic and guard Thabo Sefolosha, were arrested in the wake of the incident, for allegedly refusing to move when police tried to set up a crime scene.
Both Hawks players have been charged with obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct.
The New York Post was reporting that Antic was additionally charged with menacing, while Sefolosha faces an additional charge of resisting arrest.
Copeland was in town with the Pacers, who are scheduled to play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. Antic and Sefolosha, meanwhile, could not have been in New York for very long; the Hawks played the Phoenix Suns in Atlanta Tuesday night before flying to New York for their Wednesday night game with the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center.
The Hawks issued a statement, per the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“We are aware of the situation involving Pero Antic and Thabo Sefolosha this morning,” Hawks vice president of public relations Garin Narain said. “We are in the process of gathering more information an will have further comment at the appropriate time.”
The Pacers have not issued a comment as of Wednesday morning, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The incident comes at an unwelcome time—not that there is ever a welcome time for players to be injured/arrested in connection with an incident at a nightclub.
The Pacers are still chasing one of the three playoff berths in the Eastern Conference yet to be clinched Currently 10th in the Eastern Conference, Indiana is just one game behind the eighth-place Boston Celtics with five games remaining
Atlanta, meanwhile, just set a new franchise record with their 58th victory of the season after hammering the Suns 96-69 on Tuesday night and has already secured the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Copeland has played in 50 games, starting 12, this season for the Pacers, averaging 6.2 points, 2.2 rebounds and one assist in 16.6 minutes per game, shooting .361/.311/.733.
He joined the Pacers as a free agent in July 2013, signing a two-year, $6.135 million deal after spending the 2012-13 season with the New York Knicks.
After going undrafted out of Colorado in 2006, Copeland spent five seasons playing abroad in Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium before getting a shot with the Knicks.
Antic is in his second NBA season, averaging 5.7 points and 2.9 rebounds in 16.5 minutes per game on .364/.299/.714 shooting. He signed with Atlanta in 2013 after playing 14 seasons in Europe. The Macedonian played in his native country along with Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia.
8 Points, 9 Seconds
Sefolosha, 30, is in his ninth NBA season and his first with the Hawks. He is averaging 5.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 assists and a steal in 18.8 minutes a game on .418/.321/.776 shooting.
A native of Switzerland, Sefolosha was the 13th overall pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in 2006, with his rights traded to the Chicago Bulls on draft night. He was later traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in February 2009.
This incident will undoubtedly be followed by cries from fans about how players shouldn’t be at nightclubs at 4 a.m. Of course, there are fans who behave and comment as if their expectation is that players actually just live at their teams’ respective arena and just work on their game 24/7/365.
The bottom line is that we just don’t have enough information to form a conclusion. That fact has never stopped anything from jumping to conclusions, anyway.
Antic is in the final year of a two-year, $2.45 million deal. Sefolosha is in the first year of a three-year, $12 million contract.
Next: 50 Greatest NBA Players Of The 1980s
More from Hoops Habit
- The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
- 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
Add us as a preferred source on Google