Fred Hoiberg is now an official National Basketball Association player.

For those of you who haven’t heard, the “Mayor” was suspended and fined Saturday for being involved in a fight on the court between the Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings Friday night.

Well kind of . . .

The NBA suspended 16 players, the largest number ever from one incident, after Dale Davis of Indiana and Michael Smith of Sacramento began throwing punches and the benches of both teams cleared.

Davis and Smith received two-game suspensions and $20,000 fines.

Hoiberg, along with 12 other players, was suspended one game and fined $2,500 each for leaving the bench areas.

The Mayor has been baptized by the NBA.

In one of his first few games, Hoiberg experienced first-hand the intensity and the terror of a full-fledged basketball fistfight — replacement referees included. Plus, he gets to feel the emptiness of a wallet because of such incidents. Aren’t capitalistic American sports great?

Now, really all Fred did was try to break up the fight between the teams. ESPN highlights showed Hoiberg in his warm-ups standing between an angry Pacer and King, but hey, at least he made the highlights!

Because so many players were suspended, both teams wouldn’t have enough players to comply with the NBA rule that states each team must have at least eight players dress for a game, therefore, the league is serving the suspensions alphabetically.

Unfortunately for Iowa State fans, the “H” in Hoiberg is alphabetically too close to the “M” in Miller. On the Pacers’ roster NBA superstar Reggie Miller is directly in front of the former Iowa State standout, but Miller and Hoiberg will serve their suspensions on the same day because alphabetically they are closer than some of the other players.

What luck.

If Fred had a last name like “Boiberg,” he’d be starting for the Pacers at Miami on Wednesday.

If Reggie’s surname was “Xiller,” ISU fans everywhere could see arguably the best shooter in Cyclone history match up against Pat Riley’s squad down in Florida.

But because Fred’s mother and father chose to have their son keep the last name “Hoiberg,” they won’t get the chance to see their son start in a NBA game.

Nice job, Ma and Pa Hoiberg. Why couldn’t you have taken up the Islam faith and changed your last name to Ali?

I guess ISU fans will just have to resort to watching Loren “The Maverick” Meyer play better than Bryant Reeves in the NBA, just like he did in college.

All joking aside, Friday night’s occurrence was quite a disturbing spectacle. It’s an unfortunate incident that should never happen. Professional players should show more control over their actions — pay me $1 million dollars a year and I guarantee you I will keep my cool.

Hoiberg showed he had a head on his shoulders by trying to keep these “professionals” from killing each other with their fists and even though he left the bench and was suspended, ISU should be proud that the Mayor did what he did.

Hell, any person who would step in between two seven-foot NBA psychopaths swinging their arms right out of a bad martial arts movie gets my vote for the Oval Office.

---

Jason Howland is a senior in journalism from Riceville. He is sports editor of the Daily.