Michael Ventre

If you’re an NBA player and you’re sitting on the bench when a brawl breaks out and you see a teammate a few feet away getting pummeled and you want to help him, it’ll cost you in a hefty fine and lengthy suspension if you act, because the league has a zero-tolerance policy against that. What league honchos decree that you do is let your teammate get pummeled, because they view peacemakers and combatants as equal offenders, no matter what common sense dictates.

In the same nutty vein, there is a rule against going into the stands during an NBA game, because unless you can prove that you were either, a) rushing to administer CPR to a dying fan, b) greeting one of the league’s corporate sponsors, or c) satisfying a serious jones for a pretzel, you will receive a fat fine and a long suspension.

On Wednesday night, Antonio Davis of the New York Knicks went into the stands during a game in Chicago. As a result, he was suspended five games by the NBA on Thursday, because the NBA has an image to protect in order to keep revenue flowing, and as a result it will illustrate to the world how it does not differentiate between Antonio Davis and Ron Artest, even though common sense demands it should.

Davis went into the stands because he was worried about his wife. He felt she was being harassed, or heckled, or bothered, or all of the above. Aside from leaving the court and walking up to where she was sitting, he did nothing wrong. He threw no punches. He wrestled with no porky fans wearing replica jerseys. He simply went up to check on his wife.

Antonio Davis controversy Knick rushed into stands in Chicago Bulls fan says he won't sue Davis, wife Davises refuse to apologize to fan   Video: Bulls fan speaks about incident Knick suspended 5 games for entering stands Celizic: Fan behavior not getting better Ventre: Suspension wrong — he's no Artest Litke: Stern sends a message to players Votes: Suspension right?|Side with fan? Readers react to incident in Chicago

But afterward, the incident was reported as if Davis had cut a swath through a horde of fans like a scene from “Braveheart.” Suddenly Davis was the new poster boy for aberrant behavior, even though the most aggressive act he committed was climbing over the scorer’s table to get to the aisle. He was ejected from the game for leaving the court.

The NBA is understandably touchy these days because it has had some blots on its reputation recently. Only last week Seattle’s Ray Allen and Orlando’s Keyon Dooling went postal on each other, drawing suspensions as a result. Even in the same game Wednesday night in which Davis went into the seats, there was a fracas involving the Knicks’ Maurice Taylor and the Bulls’ Chris Duhon. Both players were ejected as a result.

FREE VIDEO Fan speaks Jan. 20: Chicago Bulls fan Michael Axelrod talks about the incident with Kendra Davis

Yet the granddaddy of them all has to be last year’s Malice at The Palace. Artest was suspended for the rest of the season, a total of 73 games. Teammates Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal were suspended for 30 and 25 games, respectively. Overall, nine players were suspended for a total of 140 games. Artest’s sentence was the longest ever levied by the NBA for a fight.

At the time, Stern issued some legalese that may be applied to the Davis situation. Said Stern: “We have to make the point that there are boundaries in our games. One of our boundaries, that have always been immutable, is the boundary that separates the fans from the court. Players cannot lose control and move into the stands.”

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Stern obviously believes Davis lost control. Stern should simply have summoned Davis to his office, listened to his explanation, considering the fact that Davis doesn’t have a history of acting like a freak and a lunatic like Artest did at the time of the brawl, and showed leniency. A small fine, perhaps, which follows any ejection. But not a suspension.

Davis issued this statement afterward: “I witnessed my wife being threatened by a man that I later learned to be intoxicated. I saw him touch her, and I know I should not have acted the way I did, but I would have felt terrible if I didn’t react. There was no time to call security. It happened too quickly.”