How Jermaine O'Neal and Malice at the Palace changed basketball discourse

Resistance to the consensus around "thug" NBA players in the wake of Malice led to a new consensus in the ensuing decade.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Heraclitus, Hendrik ter Brugghen

Netflix released Untold: Malice at the Palace earlier this week. It’s a 70-minute documentary on that infamous event almost 17 years ago told mainly from the players’ perspective. Jermaine O’Neal is an executive producer on the project and has been doing the media rounds on it; Metta Sandifo…