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Mea Culpa: LA Times Removes Paul Pierce “Stabbing Joke”

Paul Pierce, currently number 10 on our Power Grid for NBA Players, was nearly killed 10 years ago when he was stabbed several times in a Boston nightclub. By most accounts, he was lucky to survive, and it’s clearly not something you’d expect to be joked about in the media.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened when one eager LA Times blogger took internet snarkiness too far. Here’s what appeared this morning in the Fabulous Forum, a Times sports blog:

Two years ago, he fell during the Finals against the Lakers and went off in a wheelchair. An actual wheelchair! Five minutes later, he was dropping three-pointers all over TD Banknorth Garden. He actually came back into the game with the music from “Rocky” blaring over the public-address system. Yo, Paulie, that was such a bad con job, Sylvester Stallone is a better actor than your are.

By the way, Pierce’s idea of a fun night is going clubbing and getting stabbed. Good times!

The Times has since taken out the joke, and in its place is this message:

[For the record: An earlier version of this post contained an inappropriate comment about Pierce relating to an incident in 2000 in which he was stabbed repeatedly. That comment should not have been published and has been removed.]