On the heels of Marc Stein’s report that Ron Artest would like to be traded, FanHouse posted an interview with Ron Artest where Ron Artest talks about Ron Artest quite a bit. Here’s an excerpt:
FH: Break down last season compared to this one for me. What are the main differences for you?
RA: Last year I didn’t really know the offense that much. I realized this is (Bryant’s) team, so he really dominates the game a lot and I had to adjust my way of thinking. My whole summer before my first year as a Laker, I practiced spotting up. Even if I played with regular players in the street, I’d be a spot-up player because I knew Kobe was going to dominate the ball and I wanted to perfect my role. But then during the playoffs, I’d see how these teams be playing off me … and I’d mess up. I’m like, ‘A couple years ago, y’all were double-teaming me, and triple-teaming me,’ so I had to readjust.
The whole year I was going through a transition of getting comfortable, and then the playoffs came and, bam, the old Ron Artest came, the best one — where he locks up his player, where he locks up a former Finals MVP (in) Paul Pierce, he gets five steals, a couple rebounds and scores buckets. So this summer, it was different. I didn’t prepare to play a role. I prepared to play like Ron Artest played. And that’s to help my team.
So sometimes it’s uncomfortable a little bit because I can’t play how Ron Artest plays all the time, but I don’t quit. I don’t quit on my team. I still do what it takes to win. So even if I have two points, I’m so arrogant with my defense — because I already know my defense can change a game. So when people are saying, ‘Ron Artest is playing bad,’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m playing great. Just give me a chance and I’ll show you.’ That’s the difference. The difference this year is I’m definitely playing how Ron Artest is going to play.
His numbers may not be there this season, but Ron Artest is certainly working the third person for all it’s worth.
Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith (C) tries to draw a foul from Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest at the Pepsi Center in Denver on January 21, 2011. The Lakers beat the Nuggets 107-97. UPI/Gary C. Caskey
1. He’s weary of being scapegoated for the team’s struggles and feels that he’s destined to always absorb the bulk of the blame no matter what happens because Jackson and Bryant are so dependent on the more glamorous contributions of Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom and will never publicly go after regal Laker lifer Derek Fisher.
2. As we heard at various points during his stops in Indiana, Sacramento and Houston, Artest is eventually going to squawk if he’s being marginalized in the offense, which inevitably disengages him from his defensive responsibilities.
After a so-so regular season, Artest justified his signing by coming up big in the playoffs. He followed up Kobe Bryant’s airball with a game-winning layup against the Suns in Game 5 and then hit a HUGE three-pointer against the Celtics in Game 7.
But he’s averaging just 8.1 points and 2.9 rebounds this season, which are easily career lows. The problem here is not that Artest wants out, it’s that nobody is going to trade for him. He’s 31, and his game has (seemingly) fallen off a cliff. The Lakers aren’t happy with the way he’s defending, and that might be a result of how he’s been marginalized offensively. He has three years and almost $22 million remaining on his deal, and he has a reputation for being a malcontent — who is going to want to take that contract on?
No, the Lakers are stuck with Ron Artest and Ron Artest is stuck with the Lakers.
Trevor Ariza is starting to look pretty good, isn’t he?
Years from now, when people look back on 2010, what will they remember as the defining sports moment? Uh, they can only pick one? We discovered that Tiger Woods likes to play the field and that Brett Favre doesn’t mind sending pictures of his anatomy to hot sideline reporters via text message. We found out that LeBron listens to his friends a little too much and that Ben Roethlisberger needed a serious lesson in humility. But we also learned that athletes such as Michael Vick and Josh Hamilton haven’t blown second chance opportunities (or third and fourth chances in the case of Hamilton). It was also nice to see a certain pitcher turn down bigger money so that he can play in a city that he loves.
We’ve done our best to recap the year’s biggest sports stories, staying true to tradition by breaking our Year End Sports Review into three sections: What We Learned, What We Already Knew, and What We Think Might Happen. Up first are the things we learned in 2010, a list that’s littered with scandal, beasts, a Decision and yes, even a little Jenn Sterger.
Contributors: Anthony Stalter, John Paulsen, Paul Costanzo, Drew Ellis and Mike Farley
Tiger Woods gets around.
We hesitate to put this under “golf” because the only clubs involved were his wife’s nine-iron hitting the window of his SUV and the various establishments where Tiger wined and dined all of his mistresses…over a dozen in all. This was the biggest story of the early part of the year, but it got to the point that whenever a new alleged mistress came forward, the general public was like, “Yeah, we get it. Tiger screwed around on his wife. A lot.” He has spent the rest of the year attempting to rebuild his once-squeaky clean image, but it’s safe to say, we’ll never look at Tiger the same way.
LeBron wilts when his team needs him most.
Say the words “LeBron” and “Game 5” in the same sentence and NBA fans everywhere know exactly what you’re talking about. In the biggest game of the season, LeBron looked disinterested, going 3-of-14 from the field en route to a 120-88 blowout at home at the hands of the Celtics. There were rumors swirling about a possible relationship between LeBron’s mom and his teammate, Delonte West, and there’s speculation that LeBron got that news before tipoff and that’s why he played so poorly. Regardless of the cause, LeBron played awful in that game, and it turned out to be his swan song in Cleveland as a member of the Cavaliers. Talk about leaving a bitter taste.
You can auction off your talented son’s athletic abilities and get away with it.
The NCAA set a strange precedent this season while dealing with the Newton family. The always inconsistent and completely morally uncorrupt NCAA decided in its infinite wisdom that despite discovering that Cecil Newton shopped his son Cam to Mississippi State for $180,000, and that is a violation of NCAA rules, that Cam would still be eligible because it couldn’t be proven that he knew about it. Conference commissioners and athletic directors around the country spoke out about the decision, while agent-wannabes and greedy fathers everywhere had a light bulb go off in their own heads: As long as we say the player doesn’t know about it, it could go off without a hitch. What was Cecil’s punishment in this whole thing? Limited access to Auburn for the last two games of the season. Easy with that hammer there, NCAA. Read the rest of this entry »
Artest finally won a title in June after 11 regular seasons of trying … and now he’s planning to sell the championship ring as a fundraiser to put more psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists in schools.
“I’m never going to put it on,” he said.
Artest plans to soon announce details of what he hopes will become a worldwide auction, and he takes possession of the jewelry in an Oct. 26 pre-game ceremony before the Lakers open against the Rockets. It’s an incredible gesture. But it’s even more meaningful as a statement.
“You work so hard to get a ring, and now you have a chance to help more people than just yourself, instead of just satisfying yourself,” he said. “What’s better than that? For me, this is very important.”
Artest has long been considered crazy, and he probably is, but he thanked his therapist after Game 7 for helping him get his mind right for competition. Now he’s using his considerable celebrity to shine a light on a problem that is close to his heart.
Kobe Bryant played a miserable offensive game, going just 6-of-24 from the field, 0-for-6 from long range and turning the ball over four times. But the rest of the Lakers stepped up. Whether it was Pau Gasol’s travel layup with 1:30 to play, Ron Artest’s timely three-pointer with 1:00 remaining or Sasha Vujacic’s clutch free throws to seal the game with 0:11 to play, Kobe’s supporting cast came through when they needed to.
Lakers win, 83-79.
Kobe finished with 23-15-2, which looks pretty good until you realize that he missed 18 shots and forced some terrible attempts. Gasol added a gritty 19-18, and had nine of the Lakers’ TWENTY-THREE offensive rebounds. (The L.A. absolutely pounded the C’s on the glass, which was one area where Boston desperately missed Kendrick Perkins.) Artest had 20-5 and five steals. He wasn’t terribly efficient offensively, but he hit some important shots and bothered Paul Pierce into 5-of-15 shooting. Artest no longer has to live with the specter of Trevor Ariza circling his entire existence in Los Angeles. In his own weird way, he has truly become a Laker.
For the Celtics, Kevin Garnet (17-3, four blocks) played well offensively (8-of-13), but he just didn’t get it done on the defensive glass. Rajon Rondo (14-8-10) had a very nice game, but wasn’t able to push the ball enough to take it over. Paul Pierce (18-10-2) and Ray Allen (13-2-2) combined to go a dreadful 8-of-29 from the field.
It wasn’t a cleanly played Game 7, but it was tight the whole way and it was one of the best defensive Finals games I’ve ever seen. To put this in perspective, the Lakers shot 32.5% from the field and still won the game…and the title.
“I don’t really see anything he’s doing special that any other teams haven’t done throughout the course of the playoffs,” Pierce said. “That’s it.”
So despite struggling against Artest during the Finals and the regular season, Pierce thinks it’s simply a coincidence some of his worst games have come while Artest is guarding him?
“I think so,” he said.
Those words might make things even tougher for Pierce, since Artest tends to play better when he feels he’s been disrespected.
When Artest was asked about the inevitability of Pierce finding his shooting touch in the series, he stopped the reporter mid-question.
“Who said that?” Artest said. “Who said that it’s inevitable? I don’t know what the game’s going to bring, but I know I’ll be playing better defensively. I don’t like the way I’ve been playing defense, so I’m going to make sure I step up.”
Pierce has missed some open shots, but he doesn’t seem to be getting open looks at his sweet spot, which is about 17-19 feet from the hoop, to the right of the top of the key.
The Celtics need at least two of the “Big 3″ to score well to win the series. In Game 3, Allen was a no show and Pierce struggled with his accuracy.
The Lakers withstood a lights-out shooting clinic by Ray Allen in the first half (7-for-7 from long range) and only trailed by six at halftime. They actually led by three with 5:20 to play, but the Celtics rattled off 11 straight points to take an eight-point lead with just 1:12 to play. They went on to win, 103-94.
The Boston backcourt was the key to the game. Rajon Rondo posted his fifth career playoff triple-double (19-12-10) and Ray Allen poured in 32 points on 8-of-11 shooting from long range. Nate Robinson also came off the bench to score seven points in a crucial six-minute stretch early in the fourth quarter. His play gave Doc Rivers an opportunity to rest a winded Rondo, which made him fresh for the stretch run (where he made several key plays to win the game).
Kevin Garnett (6-4-6) didn’t play very well but had a few nice assists in the second half. Likewise, Paul Pierce went 2-of-11 and scored just 10 points. In the pregame, Mark Jackson stressed that the C’s had to outplay the Lakers at the forward positions, but it was the Boston guards who decided the game. When the Celtics were able to get stops, they were really pushing the ball via Rondo, and that led to open shots.
Kobe finished with 21-5-6 but shot just 8-of-20 from the field and was saddled with foul trouble the entire game. His fifth foul, a charge drawn by Glen Davis, was a bad call. Davis was not even close to set when Kobe was in the air. The announcers get so caught up at looking to see if the feet are outside of the restricted area that they ignore the fact that the player’s feet are still moving.
Pau Gasol (25-8, six blocks) had another nice game and was incredibly efficient, scoring all of those points on just 10 shots. There was some media-created controversy over some comments he made about how both he and Garnett have lost a step, but Gasol clearly got the better of KG again tonight. Andrew Bynum posted 21-6 and had seven blocks, so how did the Lakers lose?
Well, Ron Artest shot 1-10 from the field and had a couple of bad plays down the stretch, including a terrible post feed that rolled out of bounds and a possession where he dribbled the ball around and forced up a double-clutch three-pointer. He did play good defense on Pierce, however. Lamar Odom was a no-show, scoring just three points in 15 minutes. He finished with five fouls and Bynum’s fine play kept him on the bench.
You have to hand it to the Celtics. The chips were down and their backs were up against the proverbial wall, and they pulled out a much needed win. Now the series heads back to Boston for Game 3 on Tuesday, and I’m a little worried about how the Celtics’ old bones are going to deal with the cross country flight and quick turnaround.
