The Buck Stops With NBA for This Unsafe Bus Stop

It’s not a big deal.

That’s what most of the Golden State Warriors said. Just a little bit of temper, just a little posturing, just a little punching and shoving and taunting.

Just a little bit of Chris Mills with a car full of buddies pulling in front of the Portland team bus.

Just a little bit of shouting threats and punching on bus windows in the parking lot of a public arena in Oakland, where some fans were still leaving after the Friday night game between Golden State and Portland.

Just a police escort needed so that the Trail Blazer team bus could leave for the airport.

Just what the NBA needs.

Friday Night Fights.

Portland’s Bonzi Wells received a two-game suspension and Golden State’s Mills three games for their parts in the fight that started in the arena and ended in the parking lot.

What happened Friday at the Arena in Oakland is what happens on city streets in places like Oakland and Los Angeles all too often.

Street violence that starts with insults and maybe punches and ends in serious violence.

Everybody was lucky Friday. The police escorted the bus away. But Portland Coach Maurice Cheeks called the situation “scary” and “frightening.”

Maybe this is a moment where an athlete could make a difference.

Besides his fine, it would be nice if the NBA would counsel and encourage Mills, a native of Los Angeles, to speak to kids at high schools in L.A. and Oakland about the dangers of violence.

Oakland had the highest per-capita murder rate in the state last year. Last month, in a three-week period, 20 people were killed in South Central Los Angeles, including a 14-year-old Crenshaw High basketball player.

This episode wasn’t so serious. It started at the end of a close game. Wells punched Mills. Players left both benches. There was brawling and then there was Mills trying to get into the Trail Blazers’ locker room and being stopped by security.

But what does it say about Mills that he couldn’t end it, couldn’t go back to his own locker room and cool off?

Why could he not let go? By some accounts it was Wells who threw the first punch but by some accounts it was Mills who started the fight. Plenty of blame for both players. There is no arguing that Wells wasn’t an out-of-control hothead who deserved his punishment, the suspension meted out Saturday.

And maybe, if we expect our sports stars to live by the code of “boys will be boys,” it might be understandable that Mills went stomping off to the Portland locker room in a fury, still looking for his chance to get in the last punch since he didn’t get the first.

But there is no excusing or explaining Mills’ chasing a bus, blocking the bus, making threats to the passengers on the bus.

Cheeks told the Oregonian: “I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve seen guys get into fights and when they fight on the court, they usually leave it there. I’ve never seen a guy do something like that.

“You know, that can be kind of scary, be kind of frightening, because you don’t know what’s going through a guy’s mind like that. It was like a movie.”

One suspects the movie on Cheeks’ mind wasn’t “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Don’t make too much of this,” Warrior forward Antawn Jamison said. “It was just some emotions getting a little out of hand after a close game.”

It is the culture of the NBA, though, that so many teenagers adopt. The clothes, the attitude.

The fight started after Rasheed Wallace hit a shot at the buzzer in Portland’s 113-111victory. Wallace ended up being fined $15,000 for going into the stands after Warrior fans had pelted Trail Blazer players with cups, beverages, ice and chewed gum.

When this happens next at a high school game, no one should be surprised.

“Guys were trying to break things up,” Jason Richardson of the Warriors said Sunday night before his team played Sacramento. “Yeah, it was a bad scene, a lot of people could have gotten hurt. But the league looked at the tape, they saw what guys were trying to do. No one was out there looking for a fight.”

Maybe not at the start. But Mills was looking for something in that parking lot.

He didn’t bring his friends and block a bus just for fun.

A three-game suspension is a pittance. A $15,000 fine is meaningless.

A confrontation in a parking lot between players stoked up on pride and anger and some misbegotten notion that manhood can only be defended by fists and fighting and more deserves to be taken more seriously by the league, by the teams, by the players.

Mills has a chance to make a difference. If he wants to.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com