Just when we thought Ivan Johnson was turning the corner and getting his life together – this from the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Hawks blog:

The Hawks sent forward Ivan Johnson back to Atlanta for conduct detrimental to the team.  Johnson, who was also fined an undisclosed amount, will miss tonight’s game against the Magic. Johnson was sent home for verbal altercation on the bench during Wednesday’s game against Boston. He did fly to Orlando from Boston with the team after the game before being sent home to Atlanta.

Johnson is expected to re-join the team Saturday for a scheduled practice.

Hawks coach Larry Drew declined to expand on the disciplinary action, or the reason for it, following this morning’s shoot-around.

“We made a decision to discipline him by sending him home, fining him and we will move on,” Drew said.

Johnson, a 27-year-old NBA rookie, has had issues in the past.

He washed out after one season of run-ins with coach Ernie Kent at Oregon.

After one year at Division II Cal State-San Bernardino,  Johnson played a season in the NBA Development League before joining the Korean Basketball League. That opportunity ended last year when the KBL banned Johnson  after he reportedly made an obscene gesture at a game official. He headed back to the D-League where he was named first-team all-league, but volatile enough to lead the league in technical fouls. Johnson‘s coach with the Erie BayHawks eventually benched him for his behavior.

“With me, no it’s not a concern,” Drew said of Johnson’s documented disciplinary issues. “Isolated incident. If it were anybody else we would have taken the same measure. I spoke to him before he left. We had a good conversation. It was like I told him, we will do what we have to do. He will miss tonight’s game. We will see him when we get back to Atlanta. We are moving on.”

Athletes with Johnson’s past don’t always get a shot in the NBA, much less two. Let’s hope he wises up after this incident because he may not get another chance. And he has played well enough to warrant a contract past this season.

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The race for a conference title in baseball usually comes down to the last day in the SCIAC. But  that doesn’t look like it will be the case this year as the University of La Verne (22-10, 17-4) is sitting in control.

The Leopards began the weekend tied for first with Cal Lutheran but they swept the Kingsmen, finished off by a 13-3 mercy-rule humbling today in the second game of a doubleheader at Mt. SAC.

It was the last of the three-game series. Now its on to the round robin where each team will play one last game against every other team. So  Laverne has a three-game lead on Cal Lutheran (19-11, 14-7) and a four-game lead on suddenly-surging Pomona-Pitzer (19-11-1, 13-8).

So there are seven games left, six if you throw out each team’s game against winless Caltech. That’s a pretty decent lead for this point in the season. La Verne Coach Scott Winterburn is optimistic but cautious because he knows his team is likely going to get every team’s best pitcher this time around.

The Leopards did agood job of keeping their composure with Cal Lutheran doing its best to stir things up. The Kingsmen pitchers hit five batters, plunking Michael Stewart three times. It hardly seemed like a coincidence given that Stewart had laid a hard but clean tag on a Cal Lu runner early in the game on a baserunning blunder.

Asked about the repeated plunkings Winterburn played it down. Whether it was intentional or not, the Leopards did their talking with their bats, punshing the Kingsmen and finally putting them out of theuir misery with a five-run eighth.

And consider that this is a team without a home field. The Leopards are nomads of sorts, practicing at nearby Damien High School and having to play home games at Mt. SAC, Azusa Pacific, wherever.

Yet the Leopards just go about their business. They deserve to win this SCIAC title and when they do it will be a reward for a job well done!

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