LeBron James sucker punches Isaiah Stewart and all hell breaks loose.

There is a reason player enforcement has always been a thing in the sport of hockey, and it is exactly because of moments of extreme cowardice such as this one.

On Sunday night there was a wild incident in the National Basketball Association during a game between the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Lakers. The whole thing was sparked by NBA superstar LeBron James, who should be embarrassed by his actions, when he delivered a nasty looking sucker punch to the face of his unsuspecting adversary, Isaiah Stewart.

Some of the replay angles made this look like accidental contact between the 2 big men, but the overhead shot of the incident makes it abundantly clear that this was 100% a sucker punch on the part of LeBron. You can see the replay for yourself right here:

To absolutely no one's surprise, Stewart went ballistic when he realized what had happened and when you consider the damage done to his face I think most observers will find it difficult to fault the man for reacting the way he did. Stewart repeatedly tried to get around players, staff, and security to get his hands on LeBron but his efforts would prove to be futile. In spite of the fact that a moment ago he had felt brave enough to sucker punch Stewart in the face, it looked very much like LeBron wanted no part of the enraged Stewart.

There have now been reports that Stewart continued his attempts at getting to LeBron even after he had been sent back down the tunnel, although as of the time of this writing we have yet to locate video of that alleged incident in the tunnel.

Normally in the sport of hockey a dispute like this would be settled during the very next game, where a player like LeBron would be taken to task for his cheap shot. Instead it seems very unlikely that anything will come of this, other than perhaps additional cheap shots the next time these two teams face one another or fines and suspensions from the NBA itself.