With Artest set for Palace return, what has changed?

	Ron Artest (far right), now with the Kings, returns to the Palace on Saturday for the first time since the November 2004 brawl. Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images

The downtrodden Sacramento Kings travel to the Palace of Auburn Hills on Saturday night to play the suddenly somnolent Detroit Pistons in what should be, oh, the 77th-most interesting thing going on in your world that day.

The NBA hopes it stays that way.

Saturday night marks Ron Artest's first trip back since the infamous Malice at the Palace brawl on Nov. 19, 2004, the date we can't ever seem to forget. Artest missed the rest of that season due to suspension, was not yet in Sacramento when the Kings played the Pistons early last season, and was already a King when his old team, the Indiana Pacers, made their two trips to the Palace.

Artest, if you recall -- and you do -- got into it with Ben Wallace, got doused with a cup of beer after he laid down on the scorer's table, then went into the stands to enact revenge, followed, hard upon, by teammate Stephen Jackson, who began swinging at everybody and everything not wearing a Pacers uniform.

Since that night there have been at least a half-dozen bench-clearing brawls in major league baseball resulting from brushback pitches or hit batsmen; hundreds of gloves-off fights on NHL ice; and one more NBA brawl, not nearly as ugly, that spilled, ever so slightly, into the stands at Madison Square Garden last month. But the Friday night fight at the Palace is the one that sticks in America's collective consciousness and probably always will.

Herewith, a five-pack of aftereffects from that infamous night.

5. Increased security at arenas.

I give the NBA credit for the way it handled this because changes have been made but subtly. The fans are closer than ever to the action -- this is the point when I complain that reporters in many areas have been moved to the nether regions to make even more room for lower-level paying customers -- yet arenas have not been turned into police states.

The dirty little secret about these brawls is that if 6-foot-9, 250-pound players suddenly want to hurl themselves into the stands, there isn't a lot anyone can do about it. But I've seen more vigilance by security people and know from talking to them that there is a lot more awareness of what they should do if violence erupts. The MSG crew did a terrific job minimizing the chaos that broke out in that Dec. 16 incident between the Knicks and Nuggets.

4. More civility by fans. I think.

I present this one with a caveat. In general, I'm not a fan of fans. I'm glad that the moron who poured beer on Artest and the butthead who shouted racial epithets at Dikembe Mutombo in Orlando earlier this season have been barred from NBA games.

Some small percentage of the enlightened populace that attends live events, though, had to have been mortified by the fans' part in that awful tableau at the Palace. Perhaps that's why Artest was treated so nicely last summer when he attended a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park. "They welcomed me with open arms in the summertime," Artest said. Or perhaps they were just happy that the Tigers were playing so well.

Also, the NBA now posts, as a direct result of the '04 brawl, a "Fan Code of Conduct" at all arenas. The points in the code are obvious -- "guest will not engage in fighting, throwing objects or attempting to enter the court, and those who engage in any of these actions will immediately be ejected from the game" is one example -- and don't mean a damn thing if someone really wants to cause trouble. But I have to think it's made some fans a little more aware that buying a ticket doesn't give you license to be a jerk.