He’s feisty.  He’s cocky.  He’s confrontational. 

But that’s only scraping the surface of the adjectives that could be used to describe Charlotte Bobcats forward Stephen Jackson.

He’s also intelligent, versatile, aggressive, hard-nosed, loyal, and offensively gifted.

But, boy, does it suck to be Jackson.

His past actions and reputation have made him a media villain.  The lack of love began back when he was an Indiana Pacer, and he rushed to the aid of a fellow villain, Ron Artest, in the infamous Brawl in the Palace at Auburn Hills.

Aside from that he’s publicly asked to be traded from a couple of different teams.  And Jackson is routinely confrontational with the referees – which stacks the odds against him for getting calls in his favor.

Case and point – let’s look at an example from Game 2 between the Orlando Magic and the Charlotte Bobcats.  The Magic blew the game open in the third quarter, and fended off a run by Charlotte to secure a 92-77 victory which put them ahead 2-0 in the series.  Stephen Jackson was putting in work, scoring a game-high 27 points on slashes to the basket, mid-range pull-ups and three-point bombs.  Given such an impressive offensive display, one would tend to believe that that type of player would garner the benefit of the doubt on questionable calls.

Jackson doing one of the things that he does best - - pleading his case.

But here are the Bobcats – in the midst of a small, but critical fourth quarter run – and Jackson poised to make a play from the triple threat position near the three-point arc.  Suddenly Magic froward Rashard Lewis reaches in, smacking the ball from Jackson’s hands, jarring it free.  The smack didn’t look clean, but no whistle was blown for a player who had proven that the defense couldn’t contain him.  After Lewis corrals the resulting loose ball, Jackson reaches to poke the ball free – and, of course, he gets whistled for a foul.

In the following Charlotte possession, Jackson blew by Orlando swingman Matt Barnes taking the ball strong to the rack.  He wove through a considerable amount of traffic before his layup came up short.  Then, Jackson resorted to his usual barking at the officials.  But this time, he was barking with his headband down over his eyes.

Upon further review of the play, S-Jax was absolutely mugged by Barnes on his way to the basket.  Barnes indeed hit him in the head, and the force was so hard that Jackson’s headband did slump down over his face.  The contact was very blatant, as Barnes could be seen flailing in Jackson’s direction well after the foul was committed.

That turn of events should be frightening for the Bobcats.  If their best offensive player cannot get a basic call, do they really stand a chance at a first-round playoff upset?

It’s a sad state of affairs for a player whose feistiness will shape his career more than his talent.

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