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♪dramatic synth drone♪

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The entire Ron Artest story is the story of America.

It is the story of endless possibility and endless...

ability to recover from complete failure.

And that is the ultimate test of humanity.

And Ron Artest, wow, who would have ever thought?

This is like a movie.

[Kobe] The only time I had ever had to have a conversation

with Metta World Peace was we got finished playing the game.

He wasn't as physical as he normally is.

So after the game, I'm out at dinner and I'm eating,

and Metta comes walking in.

And I said -- I said, "Metta!" He comes over and I said,

"Wh-- What's...Where's the physicality?

Where's the -- the toughness?" He was like, "Oh, man.

You know, I'm not trying to, you know, upset anybody

or do anything like this, you know?" I said, "Your name

is Metta World Peace, right?"

He said, "Yeah." I said, "How do you think peace

is accomplished?" He goes, "I don't know."

I said, "Through war. [laughs]

Win the war and then you have peace. Got it? All right."

[announcer] Final minute of the season

for the Indiana Pacers.

The Celtics have ... of the Pacers...

The Celtics advance to the second round.

You're not gonna do anything.

-Come on, my nigga! -Get the fucking security!

Get your motherfucking security right now!

[man] It was like a tornado Or a hurricane.

And that was Ron. He'd be quiet before the storm,

and then he'd be quiet after the storm.

[man] Ronnie seemed to go from one to 100 real quick.

You know, you weren't gonna get a lot of warning.

[man] I never questioned Ron's ability. Never.

Where he was mentally. Every single day, I questioned.

[man] I always remember somebody telling me,

"This would be the last guy you'd wanna fight."

[commentator] Artest is in the stands!

Oh, this is awful. Fans are getting involved.

When Ron-Ron ran in the stands, like, I was just, aww,

just...

[commentator] This is a disgrace.

Because that is Queensbridge

♪"Quiet Storm (Remix)" by Mobb Deep♪

[thunder rumbling]

♪It's the real

♪Hip-hop hip-hop♪

[Donnie] Ron's helped a lot of people revealing his

demons.

His disease.

♪"Life's a Bitch" by Nas

♪Life's a bitch and then you die, that's why we puff lye♪

♪'Cause you never know when you're gonna go♪

♪Life's a bitch and then you die, that's why we get high...♪

[officer] Police, open up! We've got a warrant.

Police, open the door!

♪Life's a bitch and then you die♪

The idea of a criminal enterprise in New York

had been basically limited to the mafia.

It was contained. Bad people, you know,

doing bad things to other bad people.

And then crack came.

[VO] Crack, the most addictive form of cocaine,

is now sweeping New York.

[Mark] And it completely democratized the idea

of what an illicit enterprise was. So instead of having

to be initiated into some secret society,

all of a sudden, all you needed was baking soda,

coke, a microwave, and a 9mm.

You were in business, you were a gangster.

[man] Federal drug enforcement agents have been saying

for a long time that the crack situation in New York

is out-of-control.

[Fredro] That was the home of guys like the Supreme Team.

You know, those were the guys when I was

comin' up in Queens.

When crack hit, it was a way out for some,

and then for some people, it was a way to hell,

you know what I'm sayin'? Because you might sell crack

to your uncle, to your aunt, to your mother.

Like, that's how the epidemic hit.

A lot of people got killed.

Crack affected a lot of people around me,

a lot of family members.

[boy cries]

[crying] Don't take my mother, please!

[Mark] It destroyed families, it destroyed countless lives.

And it was an incessant level of violence which you had

in those days in New York, was the normalization of violence.

[Mr. Cheeks] One night back in the late 80s, you know,

my man got killed right in front of me.

At the corner store, we were usually around the corner,

and the dude shot him and...

That was something that I wouldn't...

I mean, I'm thinking about it everyday.

Everything was for crack. You know, everything was about

hustling. The crime levels just shot up.

If you disrespected somebody and, you know,

a guy might be a hustler or whatever

and you come up short, you might get shot in the ass.

[Havoc] Queensbridge was one of the grimiest places

that you could grow up in.

And you could ask anybody from anywhere else,

from any other borough that ever came out there

and they'll let you know, like, "Yeah.

Queensbridge is crazy."

It reflected in everything that we did, whether it was

you know, the music that we was writing

to the ball that we was playing on the block

or, you know, how we acted in school.

You know, we -- we took Queensbridge with us.

We wore it with pride.

Just the whole atmosphere just -- It really --

It just brought out the beast in us.

It was the first time in New York...

that...

Queens took the front pages for crime.

Queens was where cops were being assassinated.

[man] Four young men accused of executing

rookie cop Edward Burn. He was gunned down while guarding

a witness in a drug case. It happened in Jamaica, Queens.

The same neighborhood where three

of the four suspects...

[Mark] Queens was where the most notorious

kingpin crack dealers held court.

They controlled everything.

Basketball and the violent life of New York

became enmeshed.

Your mother would tell you, "When the lights get down,

you know, I don't care who's playing. Bring your ass home,"

'cause nine times out of ten, they was gonna start shooting.

[man] Six blocks and 96 buildings.

The Queensbridge Houses is the largest housing development

in North America, and for years, its reputation sullied

by gang violence and shootings.

Queensbridge, if you can imagine the, um...

[inhales deeply] ...the poverty because of people

living, um, in low-income circumstances,

like, living on top of each other.

[N.O.R.E.] You could live in Queensbridge

and go to a certain part of Astoria that is beautiful.

But you can also turn the wrong corner and you will die.

This is the part that people don't understand.

Queensbridge is divided by North side and South side.

And each side is composed of three blocks.

You got 12th Street, 10th Street, and Vernon

to make up the North side. Then on the South side,

you've got 12th Street, 10th Street, and Vernon,

and it's separated like that.

Ron grew up on 10th Street. grew up directly

across from me.

[Ron] That was my original apartment.

And that's the apartment I -- I had the most memories of

as a child.

And, um... [chuckles]

That kind of welcomed me to Queensbridge.

Fun times, you know, bad times.

Father and mother fought a lot in that house.

Obviously, a man should never hit a woman, right?

But they would fight. They hit each other.

It was times where, you know, police would come

and my parents, they tell each side of the story,

and they're back in bed with each other.

As a child, when you see the first argument,

it's very shocking.

You're just like, "What happened?"

And then as it continuously happens,

and then all you want is the best for both parents.

I really never took sides when my parents would

argue or fight.

I was just like, "Can this be over already?"

He was, like, eight years old the the summer of 1988

and me and his mother were separated

at that time.

I remember my dad coming to 41-08

telling me he's never coming back. [chuckles]

And I was like, "Are you ever gonna come

back to see us?"

[Ron Sr.] I did stay close by.

Close by. I saw him everyday, uh,

as long as we were separated.

It helped -- it helped him set

on the right track.

[Ron] A lot of that stuff really scarred me.

And then I alw-- I always walked around

with this chip, you know, on --

on my shoulder.

I just couldn't get over the fact that

my parents and mom were separated.

At school, he was having difficulty with anxiety problems

the way he was feeling after the separation.

And he would get in trouble a lot.

[Ron] I was suspended every year for fighting.

Kindergarten, first grade, second grade, every grade.

All fighting.

It was probably the dumbest reasons, quite honestly

It was, um...

Somebody'd say something, somebody'd brush you,

skip in front of the lunch line. [laughs]

All that type of stuff.

I had to get after him a few times.

You know, the old-school discipline way.

I never felt nothing wrong with that.

So, uh, I kind of kept him in line a little bit.

My mom sent me to a service that they had counseling

inside one of the apartments.

A free service.

A lot of the kids from the neighborhood was there.

Um, some kids had autism,

some kids had -- was bipolar.

Some was on medication.

It was like two of us in there that had, like,

anger problems like me, but the counselor was in there

trying to figure things out.

She used to advise him to take up a sport

and he chose basketball

and that helped him out tremendously

'cause while he was on the court, he'd

channel all his energies to basketball,

and that kind of helped him out a lot.

♪tense music

[Capone] Me and Ron's dad always had a close,

close relationship.

You'd see him coming, and he'd be like,

"What's up?"

And he'd scare you with his "What's up?"

You know what I'm sayin'?

Ron's dad was tough.

When Ron started playing ball

I seen a different side of him.

I seen, like, his toughness wasn't like

an abusive father toughness, but it was

"You gonna make something out yourself" toughness.

[N.O.R.E.] One of my earliest memories of Queensbridge,

it's snowing.

And I remember Ron-Ron out there

with his father, and him just running drills on him.

I remember seeing that on 12th Street.

On motherfuckin' 12th Street.

That's one of my greatest memories is just

going out there with seeing Havoc, you know,

drinking E&J and falling out.

And Ron-Ron, you know,

playing defense on his pops.

[Havoc] It could be 10 degrees outside,

and they would be the only two outside

on the basketball court playing.

And, you know, his father didn't treat him

like a little kid.

His father used to be like...

You know what I'm sayin'?

Elbowing him, pushing him.

I probably had some hate towards him,

because I would go at him.

And he would push me down, not let me score,

be playing one-on-one full-court,

and me and my dad all night.

I think that's why I build my endurance up.

It wasn't scientific, it wasn't planned.

He might feel like that.

Just me out there playing with him

and being a little rough with him.

Not dirty, nothing to hurt him,

but just being a little rough

or doing things that they all call a foul

if you did in a game.

At the end of the day, it was nothing that

that was stopping their process.

It was nothing that was stopping Big Ron's focus

on making Ron-Ron the best ball player he could be,

the strongest he can be.

And if shots rang off, cool,

they know they ain't getting shot at.

They catch a stray bullet?

Go to the hospital, get taped up,

and come right back out to the court.

That's how it was.

It was like nothing's easy,

and that's how we play it.

I started beating my dad when I was 15.

That's when he couldn't beat me no more.

And then when I was able to beat him, I'm like,

"This is how I gotta play [chuckles] to win."

[man] That's it. So the bottom line is the win,

- so I'm winning... - Leave the refs alone.

[ man] The bottom line is a win,

and that's what we're tryin' to do on three, win.

[Havoc] The pickup games in Queensbridge,

they was equally as brutal as me watching

Ron and his dad on the court,

if not worse.

When you playin' against dudes, you know,

on a court that's not your family, you know,

you could get an elbow, you could lose a tooth.

[Ron] On my block, it was no layups. [laughs]

My block was very intense, you know?

We had a guy named Yammy

and when he would lose, he would bring out his gun.

[chuckles] Really simple.

I remember Lloyd Newton being killed.

He was a idol of ours,

really smart point guard,

tall point guard.

Somebody just pulled a chair leg from a table

and threw it and it went through his heart.

I wasn't there, but when that happened,

it changed the whole complexity of

of neighborhood basketball.

The street culture had come in with the game,

and it had perverted the game,

and -- and it -- it had infected the game

with its violence.

As Ron got older, it was either drugs or sports

then, you know what I'm sayin'?

You was either slinging crack or you was playin' ball.

Hustling was something that was very intriguing.

I learned how to cook crack, learned how to cut up

the cookies and stuff.

It's like, "A'ight, cool, here we go."

I remember making my first sale.

It was a crackhead

who would always come and buy it from my family.

I remember giving the crackhead the money

and just running back in the house.

I didn't even take the money

and my cousin was like, "Yo, where the money at?"

I'm like, "Yo...

I--I--I didn't have time to take the money."

[thunder crashing]

I was scared. I was scared to selling --

to be selling drugs, quite honestly, you know.

I didn't like it, I didn't like feeling, you know?

Um, it just was not for me.

It was that simple. I knew right then and there

I was not gonna be a drug dealer.

[thunder rolls]

[N.O.R.E.] KRS made this song called "The Bridge is Over."

♪The Bridge is over the Bridge is over...♪

And you wanted to hate every word he said

when he said "The Bridge is over."

But the record was so fuckin' hot!

♪Manhattan keeps on makin' it Brooklyn keeps on takin' it♪

♪Bronx keeps creatin' it and Queens keeps on fakin' it♪

♪Yeah

[Fredro] That was a hit record KRS-ONE had,

and every time they played it,

"Queens keeps on fakin' it,"

that was just like a blow to the whole Queens.

Wherever you was from in Queens... [record scratch]

that -- that was a dis.

Damn...

But it also pumped something in every

Queens kid's heart.

And it said, "Nobody will ever say

'Queens is fakin' it' again."

♪"Made You Look" by Nas♪

♪Now, let's get it all in perspective♪

♪For all y'all enjoyment a song y'all can step with♪

♪Y'all appointed me to bring rap justice♪

♪But I ain't five-oh y'all know it's Nas, yo♪

From that moment, KRS-ONE birthed

every greatest Queens athlete ever.

He's also birthed every greatest Queens MC ever,

because we will never, ever, ever

let that statement become true again in life.

And that's why you got people like N.O.R.E.

You got people from, like, Nas,

you have people like Mobb Deep, LL Cool J

and Run DMC.

Because we had to let y'all know that

that statement was just a battle rap.

[laughs]

And that's clearly it. We here.

♪I made you look

♪You a slave to a page in my rhyme book♪

The music, you know, during that time in --

in that era, the content that was coming out was, like,

really gritty, hard,

it told stories of what we was goin' through,

what we wanted to be.

You know, the situation that we was in,

how we wanted to get out of it.

Queens was the capital of lyricism,

you know what I mean? And to me,

you know what I'm sayin', the good music

came out of Queens.

One thing you don't want to do

is you don't want to be going to jail.

You gotta -- You gotta, you know,

pretty much attach yourself to something

positive, and music was it.

As I started to go outside,

then you hear about Mobb Deep.

And you heard, "Oh, wow,

these guys are pretty famous."

Like, "Oh, word? Those guys that

live on the third floor?"

"And they got records on the radio."

"Oh, that's pretty cool."

Then you hear about Nas. "Who's Nas?"

"Nas from Vernon." "Yo, he's from Queensbridge?

That's pretty dope."

Ron loved music, but when I seen Ron start to rap,

at first I was like, "Come on, man. Put --

What are you doing? You know what

I'm sayin'? What are you doing?

Stick to ball, man."

I was, uh, a star at La Salle

and they brung... [sighs]

the skinny kid from Queens.

He played for the same AAU team I played for

so I -- I knew Ron.

[Ron] There was a all-boys' school. Catholic.

[Ron] I think I got in a fight in the hallway. [chuckles]

I remember being suspended.

I remember them saying,

"If you do this again, we're kicking you out."

And they sat me the first 13 games

of my freshman year,

and it sucked.

[Shammgod] He didn't really have a skillset at this point.

I used to always tell him to come in the mornings

just to work on his skills.

I'm like, "You need to learn how to dribble,

shoot, stuff like that."

[crowd cheering]

[Bill] His reputation, of course, preceded him.

That he was a tough, tough player.

And he wouldn't take anything from anybody.

I gotta attribute that a lot to his father.

I guess he said, "If I can play against my father,

I can play against anybody.

I always found Ron a hard kid

and then a hard guy not to like.

There -- You know, despite the rough exterior

and the fact that he looks like he's a --

you know, like a raging bull,

there's actually, like a soft spot

and a sweetness to him.

He worked hard that summer.

You know, he was playing AAU or Riverside

and they had Elton Brand, they had Lamar Odom.

I knew right away from the first time I --

I played against him that he would be the

toughest competition the rest of my life.

[Bill] That was one of the greatest AAU teams of all time.

Ronnie and Elton Brand...

You know, that was a hell of a front line alone.

Lamar Odom...

You're not -- You're not gonna beat that team.

[laughs]

[Mark] I think that for those kids they formed a kind of

aristocracy of -- of talent.

What that team symbolizes

was that there was no going back.

The shift was now final.

The -- The path of the game was inexorable.

The real team, the money team,

was going to be the AAU squads,

not your high school team.

[crowd cheering]

[Elton] Lamar Odom had a six-inch growth spurt.

You know, he went from 6'1" to 6'7"

from, like, ninth to tenth grade.

Silky-smooth point guard.

It was almost not fair, 'cause I'm, like,

a 6'4" center [laughs]

and they're telling me I got talent. I'm watching him

and just move and pass the ball, unselfish,

just amazing player.

And Ron Artest was the enforcer.

You know, that's -- that's who he is,

that's who he was.

Defensive stopper.

That's where we learned how to play unselfishly.

We always knew Lamar was the most skilled,

Elton was the best,

I was pretty damn good.

[Mark] Ron always made the right basketball play.

It's like he learned the game at a Jewish summer camp.

All that being said,

there was something scary about the guy.

There was a look in his eyes,

you didn't want to mess with him,

because he could go off on you.

[woman] Oh, no, he didn't!

No, he didn't!

We were playing a tournament in St. Louis,

and this is their home tournament and

the guy was scoring a little too much for Ron's liking

and he ended up, you know, punching him in the face,

coming off the pick.

There was a -- a jaw that was, uh, displaced.

But that's who Ron was, he's --

He had pride in his defense.

I remember -- [sighs]

We was watching a high school game

and there was a game before us and this guy

got on my nerves

and I threw him down, like,

20 sets of bleachers

from really high up.

Um...

It was pretty bad.

Ron just picked him up...

over his head and, like,

just threw him down the fucking stairs.

That shit, that was crazy.

Ron, when he goes there, ain't no stopping him.

[Ron] I didn't really care.

You know, when I was younger, I didn't really

care about anybody, what they thought.

You know, all I know is

I'm here to play basketball.

Get the hell out of Queensbridge

for a little bit.

[indistinct shouting]

[Bill] When Shammgod left, he became the focal point

for the next two years.

And we had very, very successful years with him.

The final year, we played Christ the King,

who was loaded, uh, in the semi-finals

of the city championship.

And, uh, we were down at half.

I remember yelling at the kids, saying, you know,

"We rode this guy's back the whole year.

Let's continue the -- the ride."

And he went crazy the second half.

I remember he started off the third quarter

with a monstrous dunk.

And, of course, we ended up winning.

We were the last team since 1970

to win the city championship undefeated.

It was him that, quote unquote "willed us" into that --

that record.

When I took him out of the game,

when the game was basically over,

he had so many kids and people from Queensbridge

that was there, it was incredible.

And he actually went up in the stands

and they hugged him.

It was very emotional.

[Ron] At that age, at -- What was I? 17 years old?

There was a bunch of things going on at that time.

My little sister passed away.

She was two-and-a-half months.

She passed away in the bed.

Sudden infant death syndrome.

Dedicated every game to her.

I remember, it was just hell.

And I also had a baby come at that time also.

I was trying to become a parent...

...and a family man at 17 years old.

My brother, he did ten years.

He got snitched on when he was drug trafficking

and he didn't tell.

I remember, I remember the day.

I was right at the same spot that Capone shot a cop

maybe, like, three years earlier.

And that kind of hurt me because

I had no guidance.

And I look back at that and I'm like, "Wow, you know?

Um, how did you do that?"

You ready?

Yeah, I'm ready.

I just feel like a big storm is coming

I--I don't know. I don't know, man.

I don't know.

[applause]

I picked St. John's because New York --

New York fans and

there's no better basketball other than New York.

[Jarvis] If I knew how it was gonna've gone,

I might not have taken the job, to be honest with you.

Ron -- R-- We had a lot of fights. [laughs]

It was -- It was, at times, you'd think it was --

you were watching the circus.

Every time I'd meet somebody

that I played with back in the days, they like,

"You remember this story?" I'm like, "No.

I don't remember the -- [laughs]

the -- my 100th fight." [laughs]

[Jarvis] He was the first.

He was also the last player I ever had that

had those kinds of mood swings.

I knew there was something that was off.

Something wasn't quite right.

Well, he was bipolar.

He had a -- I guess it was a chemical, uh, imbalance.

You know, people would say, "Ah, he's crazy."

He wasn't crazy.

I mean, first of all, he's too smart anyhow, you know.

But second of all, um,

he had a -- he -- he had a...

He had a disease, he couldn't handle it.

We'd be having a practice, things would be going great.

And then all of a sudden, something would happen

and Ron would just go off.

And I would blow the whistle, call a timeout,

and I would pray.

99 percent of the time, that worked.

Ron would calm down,

and then I'd say, "Okay, get a drink of water,"

and we'd go back to work.

This particular Sunday evening,

about 20 minutes later, I call my second timeout.

And we pray again, and we come back out.

Maybe 20 minutes later,

I gotta call a third timeout.

I said, "Ron...

...I want you to leave the gym."

Well --- [inhales]

As -- On his way out,

he picked up every ball off the two-bar racks

and threw it up into the balcony in the --

in the arena.

Then, he took the ball rack and threw that up.

And then he slammed his way out the gym.

It was too much. Too much, um...

Way too much intensity.

[chuckles] Way too much.

[Jarvis] I go up to my office, I open the door.

...the second secretary used to have this

old-fashioned typewriter

on her desk as you enter the locker room.

So the l-- The -- The typewriter wasn't there.

The typewriter was

lodged into the wall. [laughs]

So I'm saying to myself, "Damn, I didn't believe

anybody could be that strong."

The typewriter's basically part of the wall now.

The next morning, uh, you know, I had called Ron.

He came in and he was remorseful.

He was really, really, really sad.

I never had a player or anybody like that

in my life

that could go from being,

I mean, the kindest,

most gentle, soft-spoken,

mannerly, sweet, lovable person

to being,

like, totally the opposite.

Never had anybody in my life like that, ever.

[commentator] This game is sold-out.

It's the first sell-out at Madison Square Garden

for St. John's in three years.

[man] For St. John's Ron Artest led only the

second triple double in the school's history

against Seton Hall a few weeks ago.

An outstanding all-around player.

The only reason I started scoring is because

media, NBA fans, they wasn't recognizing defense

or deflections, you know?

Or being disruptive.

And they didn't see that, so I said, "Okay, I'm

just gonna start averaging 20, 20+."

That's when I started working on my game

was because they wasn't paying people

who was having no points and no rebounds.

[commentator] Artest moves closer...

Good! With one second left!

[man] Artest, does he come out big or not?

[man] Some shot by Artest, and he's done all of this

with four fouls on him.

And anybody that thought that he couldn't play

beyond the foul line, this kid, with time,

this could be a really, really great

offensive player as well.

Everybody knew how good his defense was.

And I think for Ron, it just gave him

that confidence that a kid from Queensbridge needs.

When I watched him play at St. John's,

I just thought to myself, "This guy's gonna give

a heart attack to guys in the NBA,

because he's gonna go after them.

He's not gonna back off."

And I'm talking about the best guys in the league.

[Ron] I was really focused on the court.

And, um, you know,

and I wanted to just go to the NBA.

With the 16th pick in the 1999 NBA draft,

the Chicago Bulls

select Ron Artest from St. John's University.

[cheers and applause]

Nah. [laughs]

Playin' with the camera a little bit.

[Bill] I think getting out of New York,

-going to Chicago... -How you doin'?

...Being away from his following,

I think that was good for him.

Hi, baby. Congratulations...

-I see y'all later. -Okay, now.

[Bill] And, of course, Elton Brand was also drafted from,

so it wasn't like he was going to a team

that he knew nobody.

We did it, we did it together.

And Ron and I were the "baby Bulls." [laughs]

We were on the same team, so it was just --

It was just a whirlwind.

[Havoc] I seen Big Ron on the block. He said,

"Yo, your boy going to the league and all that."

You see him? He's a monster."

I was like, "That's what you made!

You know what I'm sayin'? You made a monster!"

And then that's what he became:

a monster in the league.

♪tense piano

[Ron] I was often fearful

of going to the NBA because I seen

Antony Mason's arms.

[chuckles] And then you see Oakley. [laughs]

And Malone.

I always asked myself, "Could I do this?"

And then I said, "Yeah, I just have to be mean."

I really had to have a lot of hate for people

when I would play.

You know, um...

And I would think bad things about people.

I was very stressed at that time.

You know, I was very stressed because..

Really, I don't know why. I had money. [laughs]

But I was super hungry, you know? Um, still.

And when I made it, I became more hungry,

and more crazy, and more everything, you know?

Everything was magnified.

Uh, so it was really a lot of things

going on in my head.

I remember there were him

wrestling with Glenn Robinson,

them falling out of bounds.

[man] Oh! And Artest is

really upset with Robinson!...

I remember, uh, seeing Ronnie play for the Bulls,

and he was good for the Bulls.

But something happened between them.

Brad Miller did something to Shaq,

then Shaq went after him.

And here comes Ronnie and he jumps on

Shaq's back. [laughing] And I'm thinking,

"Oh, you gotta be crazy."

But that was him. He --

You know, he was all-out.

I went to a lot of places with Ron in his early years.

His early years was like...

I'm looking like, "Is he -- Is he

gonna make it a long time in the league?"

I wanted to be the best from -- from day one.

But I wasn't doing things to be the best.

I wasn't taking care of my body. I was out

partying and stuff.

He was a first-round draft pick,

and he ends up, during the summer,

he had nothing to do, so he went and got a job

[laughs] in Chicago in Circuit City

and I'm thinking,

"Now, that's really different." You know?

He's in the NBA and he had a part-time job

at Circuit City.

I used to drop him off at work,

picking him up sometimes,

tried to get a discount on some DVDs players

and stuff like that.

But he really worked there in the back.

Like, during the NBA. And then, uh...

[laughs] Jerry Krause found out and made him quit.

Well, I had counseling in Chicago.

I first got diagnosed in the NBA in Chicago,

most of my other family members were all

on medicine.

So they thought I was gonna be on the same

medication as my dad was.

They just said, "Well, whatever your dad is on,"

the doctor,

"we're gonna give you half that." [laughs]

So I said, "A'ight, cool."

You know, 'cause I wanted to play basketball

and stop being so mad.

But that lasted for, like, a day. I couldn't --

That -- The medicine, I didn't like it.

I mean, we all --

I think everybody who -- who ever walked

the planet Earth has dealt with mental illness

or anxiety at some scale or level,

so nothing really out-of-the-ordinary.

Some people just have it more.

I remember Bill Cartwright saying, "Listen,

If you keep acting like this, they're gonna move you.

I don't wanna move you. I want you here."

I said, "Okay, I'm not gonna mess up again." [laughs]

And then I did something else stupid. They traded me.

[Donnie] I -- I thought it would be a good trade.

I got Brad Miller, him, and Ron Mercer.

And the more I watched him play, the more I thought,

"Boy, this guy is effective." 'Cause he was, like,

about 6'6", 6'7".

But his shoulders were like that.

[Jermaine] I remember getting into our first practice,

and he just -- he chased down everything.

Wanted to impose his physical nature onto

the person that he was playing against.

And I knew, with my mentality

and some of the people that we already had,

that would be a great mix.

[crowds cheering]

[Donnie] And then Jermaine O'Neal was a very good player.

Reggie Miller was a very good player.

I knew we had the makings of a good team and we did.

But if you get somebody who's out there just

doing sporadic things that are unusual,

you know, the players are, like,

ducking all the time.

And so I didn't want to see that happen.

♪dramatic spacey music♪

I could see that he was up and down

and that he reacted to whatever mood he was in.

Like, you know, he'd come in and some days,

he'd say, "I'm not gonna practice today."

"Oh, you -- you're gonna practice, you know. [laughs]

You gotta practice."

In many cases, I'd try to reach out to him

to try to better understand him w--

You know, and a lot was off the court.

And he was a little bit, you know, kind of

stand-offish when it came to that,

so I didn't necessarily un-- understand him.

And the ability for him to do that

brought more tension between me and him.

I don't think any teammate, um, the organization,

anybody really understood Ron.

And I'm not sure if he wanted to be understood,

you know, at the time. I think everything he did

was a reaction.

[whistle]

[Donnie] He'd get angry quick.

And you'd think, "Oh, the -- Oh, the..."

You're afraid he's gonna clear the whole gym out.

[Ron] I'm going to practice and I hated everybody.

You know?

And then I would take that hate back home and come

back to practice the next day with the same hate.

And then when you get into a game, I'm playing

with people that I hate, but I don't really hate them.

I only hate them because we just had a practice.

You see what I'm sayin'?

I was afraid that he'd do something in a game,

after a game, before a game,

that the league would have to get involved with.

[crowd cheering]

[crash]

[commentator] Somebody just threw something into the...

Really, most of my problems came when I lost.

I was a sore loser.

You know? Um, so...

We'd lost a game and I remember just wanting

to get my hands on something.

The camera cost $120,000. [laughs]

I had to pay for it.

[commentator] And Ron Artest, losing his cool

-after the game. -He will receive a bill

for throwing the monitor right there.

[commentator] That's just immaturity.

That's -- That's disgraceful.

Sometimes he straddles the line,

sometimes he goes over it.

[Donnie] That's the kind of incidents I was worried about.

You know, they're explosive incidents that --

there's no warning. It's like that. [snaps fingers]

If he perceived he got hit or something

in the wrong way,

you know, he'd react to it right away,

and you were afraid, "Oh, this guy's --

You know, he's gonna start beating people up out here."

[commentator] And now, Bell and Artest are nose-to-nose.

And Artest has been thrown out.

That's his second technical tonight, so he's gone.

[commentator] ...That started before the game.

You and I were watching it.

-[buzzer] -...fouled...

Ron Artest, strong enough to finish even with the foul,

now having words with his assistant coach Keith Askins.

And Pat Riley is fired up.

Artest's been hit with a technical foul.

Oh, it had nothing to with Pat Reily. He was in the way.

It had to do with the coach.

He was being supportive of his players,

and I hated him and his players.

[laughs] It was real simple.

Ronnie seemed to go from one to 100 real quick.

And...

...at a point, I just questioned whether he could control it.

And so that's why we tried to get him help,

and we eventually did.

[man] Artest has received treatment

for his anger problems.

However, he's declined to take medication despite the fact

that some close to him think it might be the best thing.

♪soft emotional music♪

[Ron] Your records transfer from team to team.

Teams have to know what they're getting.

I had a long talk with Donnie, and then we found, um,

a psychologist in Indiana.

I -- I could tell that he didn't want to do it,

but eventually,

I remember him saying, "Yeah, all right.

I'll talk to him."

[Ron] Well, I went a lot, after every practice. [laughs]

Um, after every practice.

You know, because, uh, I was always mad. [laughs]

[man] ...you're doing?

You're not gonna do anything.

-Come on, my nigga! -Get the fucking security!

Get your motherfucking security...

That's not the kind of thing, you know,

you take a pill and you're --

you're okay.

I knew that it was gonna take time.

I knew that Ronnie going into it

was kind of suspicious of it.

We did see his, uh, psychiatrist.

She did -- She travelled with us quite a bit.

Um... And so that part we understood.

The problem is that at the time, we could never really

get to understand, you know, who Ron was

because he wouldn't -- he wouldn't speak about it.

I didn't have a good relationship

with those guys, 'cause I was very -- I wasn't social.

I -- I can't recall --

I can't count on my hands how many times I had lunch with

one of my NBA teammates.

You know, I think a lot of it is just -- just lack of --

lack of control at the time.

You gotta understand what I'm saying.

It is two different parts.

Ron was one of the most unbelievable competitors

that our league had seen at the time.

[whistle] [crowds cheering]

[commentator] Artest, defensive player of the year,

shows why with a steal of Wade

and a slam on the other end.

I just always remember being the best defender,

finish -- finishing number six in MVP voting.

[Kobe] Literally, if you put the ball around this guy,

if you show him the ball, he's going to take it from you.

Not some of the time, all of the time.

I -- I just never seen anything like it.

I mean, I used to say his left hand was like a glue trap,

because if he just got one finger on that ball,

he's popping that ball lose and he's taking it from you.

You're not gonna have any idea how that happened.

[commentator]: ...Now Artest really leveling...

[commentator]: ...at the other end.

I mean, he took it to him offensively and sacked him

down to the baseline, and ate him up.

Look at the hands of Artest. He is a -- Oh...

...pushes him down!

[indistinct chatter]

[Jermaine] He hated Paul.

He felt like he was just tougher than Paul.

Like, we knew how great Paul was as a player,

but he felt like he was the one player

that can change everything about Paul.

[Ron] We had wars over the years.

He a Hall of Famer...

...and I -- I feel like I had something to do with that.

Because I pushed him.

We had wars. I'm proud -- I'm proud that we had wars.

Our time was now,

and even our differences that we had away from

the actual games,

um, we were able to put it aside and just go compete.

And that's why we ended up having

the best record of the year.

[whistle] [cheering]

[Ron] Back home, there was no layups.

It was that type of basketball that made me who I was,

so I brought that to the NBA.

And some people called it dirty,

but I was just relentless.

[Chauncy] We were about the same team.

Both teams just played with the mentality of,

you know, we -- we -- we gonna win the game or the fight.

He was always, um...

On the edge of it, [laughs] you know what I mean?

And you never quite knew,

you know, what was bothering him.

[Chauncy] It was maybe the hardest series

that I ever played in.

Every single game was physical.

I mean, the winner of that series was gonna win it all.

It was a battle of attrition.

And obviously, the biggest play of the series

was Tayshaun's block.

[commentator] ...Reggie Miller!

And it's blocked again!

How did ... get there?

[commentator] I didn't think it was any way possible

for him to get this shot.

That is one of the most amazing blocks

that I have ever seen.

[Jermaine] After the game that Tayshaun made

the incredible block, uh,

we didn't see Ron for two days.

And that was one of the first times

that I felt anger towards him in a way that I

typically have never felt anger towards, uh,

a teammate.

An older group of guys would have settled that up quickly.

But they were a young group of guys who were, like,

"Oh!" [laughs] You know... Pointing fingers.

[Chauncy] I called a play for Rip.

Rip was a irritant, you know? Like, he's --

he's running all over the place,

he's fouling and scratching people,

and talking stuff. And I remember, um,

Rip kind of baiting Ron into the foul.

[commentator] Pacers been led by as many

as 14 in the first half.

[commentator] Oh, wow.

Artest just leveled Rip...

[Ron] He was smart.

It was tied up,

and he kind of threw his butt back towards me.

It kind of felt like an elbow.

It was an offensive foul, hit me in the groin area.

And then I immediately forgot that we were trying

to get to the finals, and I elbow him in the face.

[Jermaine] That was a tough pill to swallow.

You go through so much, you know, to try to get to that --

that place where you can get to the NBA finals, right?

You dream about that.

[Ron] He shoots two free throws and they score.

they go up four.

And, um...

They won by four. They go to the finals.

It is very stupid.

I don't care how unstable I was mentally.

You know, it's stupid.

You know, there's no excuse -- [laughs] um, for that.

[commentator]: And for the first time in 14 years,

the Pistons go to the NBA finals!

They're the 2004 Eastern Conference champions!

At the end of the season, after we lost,

I met with the management and I felt like that

the time was up and we needed to make a change,

because I didn't believe that we were gonna be able to

ultimately reach our -- our full potential as a team.

Am I aware that, uh, Jermaine was upset with Ron?

Probably, yeah.

But, you know, there are guys upset with guys every year.

[Jermaine] I just didn't think that it was gonna change.

We had a lot of aggression on that team,

but then what people don't understand,

that aggression becomes hate.

You know, or dislike.

And you have no shot in -- in sports and really in life

if you are on a team with some people that you

hate or dislike.

Well, I wasn't gonna listen to anybody telling me to trade

anybody, if -- if you really want to know that.

I didn't care who it was.

I get a call from Larry Bird, uh, saying,

"Stephen, welcome to the Indiana Pacers."

I was excited because I knew I was playing with guys that

I knew. Me and Jermaine O'Neal, class of '96.

We would play the McDonald's All-American game.

I was excited because I got a chance

to play with Ron Artest.

Coming into that season, it was my first year, you know.

And they just had played against, uh, the Pi-- Pistons

in the -- in the Eastern Conference finals.

They had a long season together.

So when I got there, Jermaine and Ron was

white and black, night and day.

They was nowhere -- They wasn't close at all.

We didn't talk to Ron at any point between the time we

lost against the Pistons until we got to training camp.

Not one word.

The relationship was -- It was broken.

It -- It was really broken.

When he told us that he needed time off

and the season hadn't even started yet,

I was like...

I was just like, " This motherfucker crazy, man."

I was just like, "Oh, I can't believe it.

I can't believe it."

Jermaine is looking at me like, "Are you kidding me?"

[Jermaine] Leaving the team to go down to the Source Awards

when we thought he was going home

to take care of family issues.

He apologized but, you know, when things continuously

happen, you know, it's -- it comes upon deaf ears.

I don't want anything to break this team apart,

to tear this team apart.

Ron understands the situation, he understands...

that that's something that can't come up.

That any other distraction is -- is...

is something that we don't need as a team.

Allure still coming out on November 23rd

and, uh, I want all the ladies to know go get the album,

the album's hot. You know what I'm saying?

And, uh -- You know, we in the house and I'm on the album,

rapping on the album. You know what I'm saying?

So it's just go get the album.

[woman]: What kind of teammate would you say you are?

Um...

Uh, at times, difficult.

Uh, you know. CEO, you know? Like, well, like I said,

Allure coming out November 23rd.

We six and two right now.

And Allure's album is coming out on the 23rd.

I don't how many times I gotta tell you.

Tru Warier Records.

All the ladies, go get the album,

'cause the album's fire.

[woman]: Do you think he's learned?

[Jermaine] Ask him.

He's the best defender in he game right now,

so hopefully that doesn't come up and, you know, we just

contin-- we just continue to win games and --

and prepare for winning the championship this year.

I knew his passion for music,

but I didn't think he would put his music

before basketball.

And, once again, he wasn't thinking,

but when things came back to him, it clicked.

[Jermaine] He was coming off defensive player of the year.

At the time, he was averaging, like, maybe 22,

23 points a game.

[Ron] It was cool to be able to say that.

I was one of the best at one point in time, you know?

My average went up. I was trying to get MVP.

You know? Um, and I felt like I was on my way,

from a basketball standpoint.

I never questioned Ron's ability.

Never.

Where he was mentally, every single day, I questioned.

I was looking to see -- All these guys are young and they

got these little petty things going on among them.

Is it gonna get straightened out

or I'm gonna have to trade these guys.

Well, I was gonna wait and see if we won with it.

And we were winning until we got to the Detroit thing

and then it blew up.

It was a statement time. They had just beat us in the

conference finals the year before.

We knew it was a national televised game.

Um, we were had -- had the best record at the time.

We wanted to send a message.

We had made it clear publicly that we felt like we were

the better team.

And I think that was kind of a build-up

and, you know, obviously, as defending champions, um,

they felt like they needed more respect.

I mean, warm-ups in the game, being in that arena,

you can feel it.

Nobody had to tell him. You could feel it.

Fans was "You suck, you're that."

It's coming from all over.

We were everything under the sun.

Racial slurs, assholes,

talking about our families, our girls.

It was all kind of stuff.

It was -- It was hostile and every time I played in

Detroit, in was hostile.

I remember not being able to deal with it.

I remember not wanting a fan

to scream at me. It was j-- I just hated it.

So not to say that we didn't care about the game,

but we didn't focus on the game.

It wasn't circled on our schedule like it was them.

And they came in and they did what they had to do.

And, uh, they -- they smacked us. They really did.

I was killing them. I had 24. [laughs]

And, um, they couldn't stop me.

[commentator]: Artest is really playing

a disciplined game tonight.

[commentator]: Oh, one of first...for Ron Artest,

best known for his defense, has half of the Pacer points.

[Bill] But this was not just any game.

This was two fierce and bitter rivals on a Friday night.

They're the champions and you're in their building and

you're torching them and you're the guy who's doing it.

And that doesn't just happen.

Towards the end of the game, when the Pistons were getting

whooped pretty bad, I had moved up a few rows and

let one of my workers come down and see what it was like

sitting, you know, court-side.

[Chauncy] Coach Brown, he was taking all of us

out of the game. You know?

Um, all of us -- I had just checked out.

The only reason Ben didn't check out,

if I'm not mistaken, is because he was on

the free throw line.

And then a little exchange at the end,

uh, with Ron, um, Ben had kind of warned him, like,

you know, "Just chill. Y'all won.

Y'all got the came won. Just chill.

Don't -- Don't hit me no more."

You know what I'm saying? "Or elbow me, whatever."

And I guess, um,

Ron didn't really listen.

And at the end of the game, I'm guarding Ben.

We're up 13, 14 points.

I'm letting Ben just go right by me and score and we --

I'm trying to let the clock run out so we can get out of here.

[commentator]: Oh! Ben Wallace is fouled.

And Wallace st-- Oh!

Right at Artest!

This is potentially serious if they don't get between...

I never knew why he fouled him like that,

because the game was already over.

You know, not even sure why Ron was still in the game.

It was a bad foul by Ron.

The dumbest thing he could've done, probably.

It was something about Ron on Ben a foul.

[commentator]: Wallace upset.

Players trying to hold each other off.

I remember Ben Wallace being open for the layup

and not wanting to give up a layup.

I didn't want to change my mentality

because we were winning.

I always played to the last second.

That's the only way I know.

I have to finish my -- finish the game and finish it hard.

And he was open for a layup

and I did not want him to get the layup.

Just took so damn long, man. The --

From the push...

...to the confrontation

to Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton,

everybody's in the middle.

You know, it just took way too long.

We were just kind of in shock. We were like,

"Whoa, look at this." And then they were going at it and

we were like, "Oh, here it goes.

They're gonna get at it."

Ben was mad. Now, he had a right to be.

He had a right to be mad.

He kept throwing stuff at Ron trying to antagonize Ron.

[Ron] He threw a towel.

Then he hit me with the wristband.

I went to the ref. I said, "What the hell is going on?

You know, I got -- I got the foul. You called the foul.

I got pushed, no tech.

I got something thrown at me, no tech, no ejection.

Like, what's going on here? You know what I'm saying?"

So now, I'm at this point. I'm like,

"I gotta protect myself now."

Oh, he did what he was supposed to do.

He was told, like, "If you feel yourself getting

too agitated, then get away from it

and sit down and just be by yourself for a minute.

The foundation of my psychology at that time,

we did talk about, uh, often, um,

going to happy places. [laughs]

So that's why he went over and laid down

on the scorers table.

[Ron] There was nowhere else to go.

Scorers table was very comfortable at that time,

quite honestly.

I could've went to the chair, but it just didn't feel --

it felt awkward.

People have asked me why I went to the scorers table.

Where else am I gonna go?

Into a -- the -- a cafe? Or am I gonna go to...

...the locker room?

We have 20 seconds left.

The scorers table was right there,

so I can sit, I can stand on top of the scorers table,

I can lay, I can do pushups. [laughs]

There's so many -- Wha--

I laid down.

Well, I'm just thinking,

"This is just Ron being Ron, you know?

It's just Ron-Ron just doing his thing.

Like, he's relaxed and he's chilling.

Listen, they came here, got the win.

He's just kind of showing out a little bit.

But it's no big deal. This is gonna be over soon," you know?

And -- And boy, I didn't --

I wasn't right about that.

You know, Ben wore a thousand armbands and headbands,

so he was just -- I mean, he's just steady throwing them.

Just throwing them. And so people started

throwing stuff from the stands.

So he was throwing them at Ron,

and the next thing you know, you see cups and all

this stuff fly in.

We were all kind of booing him and telling him,

"Get off the scorers table."

And kids were kind of throwing popcorn down at him.

I was sitting there talking with my buddy and -- and, uh,

I said, you know, I was drinking a Diet Coke

with ice in it and he said --

I said, "I bet I could hit him from right here with that cup."

And, uh, and he goes, "No, we're too far away."

And, uh... And I just launched it in the air

underhand and it kind of went up in the air

with a perfect arc and hit him right in the chest.

[indistinct shouting]

A beer or any type of beverage is thrown in someone's face,

that's assault.

In a lot of states, that's assault.

I'm sitting there. I'm like, "Holy cow," you know?

I -- I didn't really think I was gonna hit him.

And then, uh,

Artest turned around and looked up in the stands

and the kid sitting next to me, he's yelling at Artest

going, "Yeah, you got it!"

[commentator]: Now Artest has jumped over the scorers table

and is trying to get down to...

When I seen him raise his hand, I'm like --

When I got hit, I'm like...

"That guy hit me.

There's nobody else that could've possibly hit me."

[laughs] So I ran right in that direction,

and my --

What I wanted to do was choke him. [laughs]

Not to death, but...

[laughs] just to let him know,

"Don't you ever hit me with a cup in your life."

I just started getting adrenaline and my heart

started racing and seeing him come, I started to get,

like, I was like, "Oh, man. Here it goes."

[commentator]: Artest is in the stands!

[crowd screaming]

I thought he was coming at me

and he passed me and went and grabbed this kid.

I don't know if I blame him.

Um, but if you're gonna go into the stands,

hit the right person.

Right? He hit the wrong person.

And Artest was looking at this kid saying,

"Oh, you threw it."

So he take -- takes off in the -- into the stands

and grabs this kid

and, uh, just starts, like, bodyslamming this kid.

And then beer started flying and...

I felt bad right away. I went and grabbed Artest

around, you know, like a bear hug

trying to pull him off this kid.

I have to be honest, I wasn't necessarily

whispering in his ear saying,

"Hey, I'm the one that threw the cup." [laughs]

I was very upset. All I wanted to do was go up in the --

go in the stands and tell this fan, "You asshole.

Don't ever throw a cup at me."

And I thought that was gonna be it. [laughs]

I didn't know it was gonna be more and more

and more and more.

Not a very proud moment, but hey, it just --

it's one of those things, you know? It was kind of a...

spontaneous, you know, instant chaos that, you know,

got me engulfed and, uh, I just reacted.

He had time to reflect and to think and...

And then...

...And then he just lost his mind.

And for a long time,

I kept asking myself the ultimate question

for people who do lose their mind.

And that is that

to lose something

at some point, you have to have it in the first place.

And I questioned that that night.

I wasn't afraid at one moment.

I wasn't worried at one moment.

You know, my whole mind was,

you know, protecting myself and protecting my teammates

and, uh, we'll get out of here together and deal with the

consequences later.

[indistinct shouting]

[commentator] And now another fight's breaking out

in front of the Pistons bench.

It's a -- It's a fan on the court.

This is very, very dangerous.

[Ron] But a guy comes at me.

At the time, I'm like, "This guy is crazy."

You know, now, I'm like, you know, I always wanted to know

what he was thinking, but if he --

he's really lucky there was beer on the floor,

because I slipped. I couldn't quite get a grip,

'cause the punch would've connected even more.

[indistinct shouting]

I think about the animosity that we had

amongst each other as teammates.

But that very moment, we came together

to protect each other.

It was all put to the test that night.

As the captain of the team, um, you

are put in positions and have to make

decisions for your team.

And, um, when you're making decisions for your team,

you're standing with your team.

I believed in what I did

and I would absolutely do it again.

I would absolutely do it again, because at that point,

people are trying to kill you.

Over a basketball game.

[commentator] Fans are throwing cups

with liquid in them now onto the court.

Ron Artest has a look in his eye

that's very scary right now.

That incident magnified everything.

It magnified where I was in my life,

and it magnified how much of an asshole these guys were.

[laughs]

There were security guards coming, cops coming everywhere

and I was looking at my buddy, I'm like, "Holy cow."

He goes, "Yeah, let's get out of here,"

so we took off. [laughs]

And, uh, and then it started --

We were heading out and we saw it kind of escalating

down on the court.

[commentator] You wonder if the official

is gonna let this game continue.

Now they're throwing bottles out onto the floor.

15 -- You know, 12 to 15 of you,

uh, as a team, um, and then

you look and all the exits are blocked

because the people are running on -- on the court.

[commentator]: They're trying to get the Pacers to go back

to the locker room.

[laughs] It was crazy. It was crazy, 'cause, like,

it literally was like a movie, man. It was like a movie.

[commentator] You have these ridiculous fans trying to...

I remember Chuck ... trying to protect me, but m--

I -- I wanted to go back in the stands again,

because more people was throwing beer and popcorn.

I'm like -- I'm trying to figure out --

I'm trying to find the faces

of the person who threw the popcorn and who threw the --

more beer and more soda,

'cause I'm ready to take on more people.

[commentator] Somebody could really get hurt.

[Stephen] We were coming off the courtand we had

just made it through the tunnel.

You know, from getting hit with soda, popcorn,

all kind of stuff.

our adrenaline's still pumping and, uh...

Chuck Person's got Ron. He's bringing Ron.

There's a number of cameras right there.

[commentator] This is a bad showing from the

Pistons fans here.

[indistinct shouting]

I'm the mode at that point where, you know, I got --

I had my brother's back. I'm proud of it.

So I'm looking at these people run and throw chairs and you

got people rocking chairs and, I mean, it just --

stuff coming and people got these water bottles and

running up to us and just lining us up.

Would you be the person that go to my home

and tell my wife and my kids that their dad

is dead from one of these chairs that you see

on these camera angles?

When they -- we got whole iron chairs flying

and people throwing them at us.

[commentator] This is one of the worst scenes

I've ever seen.

This is a low moment in NBA history.

When I knew it was really bad was when

we got in the locker room and Coach Brown...

You know, coaches always address the team after,

and Larry was crying.

He was crying. I looked at him, he was crying.

And when he finally calmed and came to,

he said that we gave the game a black eye,

um, tonight and we will always be remembered for that.

I'm sitting there looking at my socks.

Just blood everywhere, my legs are all scratched up.

And he -- and he's leaning back in the locker room

and he was like, "Jack...

[sighs]

You think we gonna get in trouble?"

I asked Stephen that because I just wanted to [laughs]

confirm that we are in some ... trouble.

In my mind, I had a lot going on,

and I remember asking this to room,

"Do you think we're gonna be suspended?"

Because I already been suspended so

many times already.

I say...

"Trouble? You lucky if we have a job."

And Jamal ... and everybody bust out laughing 'cause

they couldn't believe that he would ask this question.

"Bro, we just beat up fans. We just went in the stands.

This has never been done before, okay?

We brought the hood to Auburn Hills, okay?

This has never been done before.

You might've played your last basketball game, Ron.

Me -- [laughs] Me too.

We might be, uh, going overseas together, brother,

okay?

Uh, just letting you know. I --

Now you know I'm your friend, okay?"

He definitely said, "We might not have a job again."

He definitely said that.

No, that was the dumbest question ever.

I don't know what he was thinking asking

that question, but that lets you know

he wasn't in his right mind at the time.

And I just went directly to him.

You know, I tried to fight him.

They really didn't make it to each other,

but he got up upset.

And it spiraled to J.O.

really did -- he was so mad at Ron that

he turned to the coaches

and said, "When we're fighting or get into a -- a argument

or a type of scuffle, do not grab us."

He's talking to the coaches.

So at that time,

the players and coaches charging each other.

And a c-- a couple of us jump in.

We're like, "No! No! No, no! We're here together!"

So it got bad. It got bad

and that comment sparked a lot of stuff in the locker room.

It sparked a lot.

[commentator]: And another incident for Ron Artest.

So unfortunate, and again,

the fan... Hopefully, security is able to get the fan

and he'll receive proper punishment.

I always liked Ron

because here was a guy who had realized the ultimate dream,

to make something of his life using basketball.

And then...

...He threw it all away.

And for what purpose?

For a quick moment before I went to bed,

I had a moment. [laughs]

I was a little upset.

I might've cried a little bit.

But when I woke up, I'm like, "Yo,

this is not my fault, man.

This guy was an asshole.

And what did you want me to do?"

The fan made a $50 bet

that he couldn't hit me.

So when John threw the cup,

um, he had to pay the fan that raised his hand $50.

So everybody's feeling sorry for this stupid-ass fan.

His ass made the $50 bet.

[John] That night, when I got home,

I was with a few of my buddies, and I could see my wife

sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette.

And I'm like, "Oh, this is not good,"

'cause she doesn't smoke. [laughs]

And, uh, all she could say was,

"Did you guys have fun tonight?"

And, uh, I said, "Yeah, it was a good time." She goes,

"You and you and you need to get the ... out of here

and you need to come inside and watch."

She goes, "They're looking for you."

And sure enough, they're showing my face

with a halo over it saying, "We're looking for this guy."

[David] John Green will face two counts of assault and battery.

One involving a cup that struck Ron Artest

in the chest and face area.

The second is also an assault on Ron Artest

from behind when he struck him.

John Green, uh, we will depict

what, in my mind, single-handedly

incited this whole interaction between the fans and players,

and probably is the one that's, um,

most culpable.

[John] I mean, I threw a cup up in the air, you know?

I -- I...

They charged me with assault from throwing a cup

up in the air, you know?

Then they charged me with assault

for punching Ron Artest,

which I didn't even understand, because he

came up into the stands and grabbing some kid

and I'm trying to defend this kid, so...

They -- They found me not guilty for throwing the cup

and they found me guilty for punching Ron Artest, so...

Then I was given, uh, 30 days in work release.

Ron Artest will face one count

of assault for mistakenly striking

and pushing and shoving the fan by the name of Mike Ryan.

[Donnie] I felt when he went into the stands,

that's automatic.

So I knew there was gonna be suspensions.

Somebody hit him in the face with a, uh, drink

and anywhere in the world,

you'd know, I throw a drink in this guy's face,

he's coming after me.

And he went after him

and that's what happened. It --

You know, he violated one of the biggest principles

of the game by going into the stands.

[Ron] It's not about the stands.

It was about somebody had a issue.

Somebody ... hit you.

His -- Whether it was at Starbucks [laughs]

or whether he was at, uh, IBM in the office

and then [laughs]

the mailroom guy [laughs]

throws a water in your face,

the CEO of IBM's gonna kick his ass.

[Mike] I'm always tempted to compare him to Tyson.

For Ron, like Tyson, there's always this

tacit expectation, "When's the guy gonna blow?

When's he gonna come undone?

When's he gonna go nuts?"

And that night,

in Detroit, you saw it.

[Ron] That had nothing to do with any

anger management issues.

In my neighborhood, you wasn't --

you're not allowed to get bullied. Or if you been

bullied, you're never gonna let it happen again.

Your first reaction is, "See?

I knew that guy was gonna go crazy."

And for years and years,

this is not just what the league feared

or the sport feared or all American sports feared.

This is what middle America feared.

And, you know, the hammer had to come down.

I announce the, uh, following suspensions, uh, resulting

from the actions at the Indiana Pacers

and the Detroit Pistons game on November 19th.

Uh, Indiana's Ron Artest has been suspended

for the remainder of the season.

Indiana's Stephen Jackson has been suspended for 30 games.

Indiana's Jermaine O'Neil has been suspended for 25 games.

I got the word on TV

that I was suspended indefinitely.

And then,

I'm like, "Okay, I might never, ever

be in the NBA again."

Whatever assistance he has received to this point

did not keep him from doing something that was

unforgivable on Friday night.

It was hard, it was hard, 'cause I lost my LA Gear deal.

I had my own sneaker. Carl's Jr. commercial's coming.

Um, a ESPN and TNT commercial, you know?

Um, the face --

Well, one of the faces of my team at that time.

And one of the faces of the league at that time.

Players cannot lose control and go into the stands.

And, as a corollary, have to hold fans accountable

for their anti-social behavior as well.

[man] What was your personal reaction when you saw,

for the first time, what had happened Friday night?

Um, I would say shock, uh, and revulsion.

And fear.

[Lamar] I was upset.

I just didn't want him to always be remembered

for that incident. I mean, he gave so much to the game,

he worked so hard just to make it to the NBA,

as all of us have.

I just didn't want him to -- to remember that,

and I didn't think he deserved that.

[Ron] And after that happened, I said, "You know what?

I'm gonna retire."

So I started to promote my R&B album.

I had a great album at that time, too.

I produced a record, it was called Chapter III .

All R&B, Allure.

And I remember, when I had the brawl on November 19th,

the album came out on the 23rd.

That's not the image that David Stern

wants to put forth. He don't wanna put forth

a negative image,

and I've been working real hard on doing a lot of

positive things.

And, uh, you know, got this album coming out.

It's positive, it's about love, you know?

It's not rap, it's not hardcore.

But everything's positive and, uh, look at this.

-Ron, we -- we appreciate -- -Y'all have a good morning.

That album had to take a backseat.

We shelved it.

Well, he wasn't around. You know?

I got suspended 30 games, I came back.

I ended up coming back and playing.

We ended up going to the play-offs.

Ron wasn't around, so...

Nobody had seen him, nobody heard from him, you know?

Nobody -- nothing, so he kind of just, like, faded to black.

Well, I'm sure it killed Ronnie,

'cause Ronnie needed basketball.

He really did.

We would've won the championship, everybody

knows that.

Reggie would have a championship right now.

That's one thing I regret and I know he regrets too.

But, uh...

that's just the way it went down.

[Jermaine] I never thought Ron was a bad person.

I never -- I never thought, even to this day,

I never thought Ron was a bad --

I thought Ron didn't necessarily understand everything,

because he was still trying to understand himself,

so how do you expect for him to understand

other people's feelings and he's still reaching and

trying to grab help from other people?

And that's the part where I wish

I would've understood better as a teammate

instead of being angry as a teammate.

Ron kind of separated himself from everybody

because he felt like everybody was mad at him.

You know, he felt like everybody turned --

turned their back on him.

When he was eligible to play his first game,

it was a summer league game

and I actually flew to the game to cover it

and to watch him. And you could tell

that he was just different.

He really looked like he had put through the ringer.

He almost had, like, this glazed look about him

where maybe he was feeling the pressure of "Yeah, I'm g--

I'm being given another chance,

I gotta try to make the most of it."

I mean, nothing changed that particular year.

Um, you know, Ron was on the cover

of Sports Illustrated with Larry.

[Stephen] With all that he's been through, with all

that he's done, they stood behind him.

You know, we stood behind him.

And, uh, we felt we had a chance

to right our wrongs.

[Jermaine] It's about Ron right now, though.

It's about Ron. Ron Artest being back.

Ron Artest's back! All-star.

You are back. A lot of people wondered

how long it would take you to get back in your playing form.

How comfortable are you?

I'm real comfortable. You know, the team is doing well.

You know, we -- we ready to win and that's it.

That's what we come here to do

and, uh, that's about it.

We were practicing and, uh,

all of a sudden, I -- I...

Ronnie comes out and says he wants to be traded.

If you want the truth, I looked at the pages like

"I told you. I told you."

And...

It put an incredible divide between me and the Pacers.

I say, "Ronnie, did you just say you wanted to be traded?"

"Nah, nah, nah, I don't want to be traded."

And he again said it.

The reason I wanted out of Indiana was because, um...

I didn't really want out, I just couldn't deal

with the pressure.

So I couldn't just

go professionally to Donnie Walsh

and to my agent and say, "Hey, I don't want to be in Indiana

because it's too much pressure."

I did it through the media.

I made excuses.

"This is really not a, um, a comfortable spot for me.

You know, is there any way you could help me

get traded?"

I'm really, um...

...playing basketball and protecting myself from media,

and I'm protecting my, uh, mental, uh -- [laughs]

uh, stability. Um...

My guard is up.

You know, so it's so much -- so many things that was coming

with putting that Indiana Jersey on.

His action that night put this whole franchise in jeopardy

for a whole year,

and it was gonna take a lot of work to get it back up again.

And I thought, "And here, this guy is saying

'I want to leave?'

Okay, you can leave and we'll do it without you."

[Jermaine] I thought it was kind of... [sighs]

It was cheap by him, you know, breaking out on us.

It -- It pissed a lot of people off.

It pissed a lot of people off.

[Donnie] It was very hard to trade him because

it had gone out, like, "This guy's crazy."

And I remember thinking to myself that

somewhere along the line, there'll be a guy that will say

"That guy was the hardest playing guy

I ever saw in my life."

Out of nowhere, I got a call that, uh,

it was Sacramento would want to do a trade for him,

so we traded him.

[Ron] When I came back,

it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

It was a lot of barbershop talk.

[commentator] It's an offensive foul.

Artest is down on the drive by Ginóbili.

Well, Ginóbili elbowed me in the mouth.

I had a big,

swollen lip

and had to get stitches.

Ginóbili deserved to be smacked in the back

of the head.

But I didn't. I just gave him an elbow to the chest,

said "You asshole." [laughs]

So that was, like, a situation where that's --

People be reaching. It was definitely white or black.

You either like Ron at that time or you don't.

[man] Obviously, the, uh...

You know, the events of -- of this past Monday, uh,

remain a very, very serious issue, uh, going forward.

[Ron] First, I wanna, uh,

apologize to my wife,

to my family.

[breathing heavily]

[whispering] Take a minute.

I want to apologize to the Kings. [sniffling]

To my teammates, the NBA.

Everybody that, you know, supported me and, uh,

for another incident to come, uh, to come up

is very unfortunate.

I definitely want to apologize for my behavior.

You know, Ron Artest, uh, once again is, you know,

in the media for something other than basketball.

I definitely apologize, once again, to the fans

hoping that, you know, Ron Artest can, you know,

pretty much stay on a straight path.

And, uh, I want to prove to them that I can.

I figured out that, uh, I need help. I figured that out.

And I figured out that in order to fix some, um,

people call them "demons" or "mental health issues"

or, um, "depression."

Or, um, the opposite of depression, "anxiety."

Right? Those were the things I had.

Yeah, hereditary, um...

Um, biological, and then also, environmental.

So many things that can mold anybody.

And I realized that,

so then just addressing all those different issues.

There's a lot of stigma when it comes to mental illness,

things like that. Well, it doesn't mean you can't

have a normal life.

Or a successful life.

Um, definitely, there was some damage control.

We had to do some of that.

And I remember not wanting to overnight change.

I wanted to just let it happen naturally.

You know, um, and then that's what happened.

You know, you just --

People get over it. It was -- It took a long time for me.

I'm in Boston and I'm just there because

I want to see the game.

I also wanted to experience, um,

championship.

'Cause I'm like, "Oh, I'm getting older.

I need to get a ring.

So how is it gonna be when I get here?"

[commentator] After a 22-year absence, the Boston Celtics

are NBA champions once again.

Banner number 17, soon to be raised to the rafters.

[Ron] I felt bad for the Lakers 'cause Lamar's on that team.

So I go in there and I say to Phil,

"I want to say 'Good job' to Kobe.

Kobe's in the shower

and I don't feel like waiting around long."

I was naked in the shower and, um...

[laughs] I just -- I just hear my name

and I turn around and it's -- it's Ron.

He was just like, "Hey,

I'm -- I'm gonna come help you. I'm gonna come join you.

This is not gonna happen again. I got you."

Obviously, I would love to play with Kobe, but, um...

I'd much rather play against Kobe.

The next season, he went to the Rockets.

You know, gave us some headaches.

[commentator] Ron and Kobe pushing on each other.

Pushing and shoving Ron and elbowing Kobe.

Kobe, right back at Ron. Ron, back at Kobe.

I think a lot of players let him get away with stuff

because he's so strong and, you know,

tends to scare people a lot.

Um, but every time he hit me with a elbow,

I threw one right back at him, twice as hard.

[commentator] Boy, Bryant threw that arm out

and Artest will not back down to anybody.

And then he started talking trash. And I said, "You know..."

I said, "Ron, is this something you're sure you want to do?"

He said, "Oh, I..." I said, "Excuse me?

Okay." And then I went and proceeded to score

whatever next point straight or whatever and

winded up winning the game.

[commentator] Ron pokes it away, Kobe tracks it down,

spins left, shoots ... three at the buzzer, nails it.

He basically let Ron run right past him

so he could get an open look at a three...

[whistle]

[commentator] Loose ball for ...

I love Kobe. Yeah, Kobe's my man.

But at that time, we're super competitive.

[commentator]: Ron Artest against Kobe Bryant.

He's gotta be very careful that he does not get a technical.

He said that, uh, he's gonna go over here.

He's talking to Kobe.

Wow, here -- here we go.

Uh oh.

I just kept thinking, "Don't get ejected."

That's all I kept thinking. "It's play-offs.

Don't get ejected."

[commentator] He went right over to Bryant.

Artest has, uh, gotten very, very upset.

I think they have thrown Ron Artest out of the game.

I don't think that shit should've surprised anybody.

You know what I'm saying? You've got two

strong-headed alpha males.

[man] Yeah, Ron, Kobe, was quoted as saying

he's "not sure you're -- Lakers are a better team with you."

Do you feel you have to win him over?

Uh, I gotta win myself over first.

I gotta -- I gotta make sure I, um...

I'm doing everything.

It's not a given. The Lakers -- He's right.

There's not a given that just 'cause you --

you add me to a team, you know, it was just gonna be,

you know, the number one team.

We gotta put that work in.

I was in a position where the Houston Rockets

didn't bring me back.

The Lakers was the only team that offered a contract,

so what am I gonna do?

[Lamar] I didn't think they knew what to think.

Not too many people...

...had the competitive skill or the heart enough

to stand, um, stand up against Kobe like that.

[Kobe] The first time I saw him when he joined our team,

I told him, I said, "Listen,

you're coming here to replace a player that was like a

brother to me and still is to this day.

Like, Trevor came here and played lights-out for us.

He didn't miss a three in the play-offs,

and he was tenacious on defense.

And showed up to work every single day,

came to practice early, stayed at practice late.

And this is who you're coming in here to replace.

So I better not get any bullshit from you."

And it was really that direct and him understanding this is

not a place to come in and goof around or

to act out or anything like that.

I'm expecting you to be extremely sharp

and be extremely crisp and I won't have it another way.

[Mark] I think they provide a very interesting symbiosis.

However tough Kobe wants to be seen, he's a middle-class kid

who's fluent in Italian, who's seen the world,

who has a sense of -- of -- of culture.

And you have Ron...

...from the projects...

...who's scary.

And that season, they found something together.

I knew practice was gonna be intense because

if he's anything how I am, I'm intense in practice.

I build up hate for whoever's on the other side.

Um, so -- But Kobe was always --

we was always on the same team,

so [laughs] I had to somehow take the hate

that I went into practice with for Kobe

and turn it into... You know, and turn it into love.

[Kobe] Like, on defense, we knew we can get after guys

and just scare the living shit out of them.

We knew that.

We'd said, "Okay, we're gonna go get this player.

Let's just make his night a complete living hell.

Let's just harass him, let's beat him up,

let's intimidate him." And we --

we'd have fun doing that.

[commentator] Bryant shoots...

...and comes up short. Artest...

[cheering]

[commentator] Ron Artest!

[Lamar] That was like a dream come true.

I knew we were gonna win -- I knew I was gonna win

a championship ring with somebody that I grew up with.

So I was kind of looking forward to that.

[Kobe] On the finals, he had a thing with Paul going back

to his days in Indiana.

Right? I -- I think that's kind of where it started.

Game one, right during the tip-off,

they get tangled up like this, like fighting for position

and the ball go up. They fighting for position

and they throw each other down. Shit like that.

They always went at it.

[commentator] Pierce and Artest already grappling.

It took 27 seconds for these two to go at it a bit.

He would cheap-shot Paul all the time and

be extremely physical with Paul.

Um, but to Paul's credit, Paul didn't back down.

[commentator] I don't know if they deserve

the technicals, but that's a heck of a takedown by Artest.

And I was in a zone that play-off series.

♪intense music

[cheering]

I wasn't getting a lot of shots, but I was in a zone.

And I wanted to stay there.

[whistle]

[cheering]

That was the only thing I was trying to do was

protect the zone that I was in.

[Kobe] I think, for him, it was

the mental aspect of the game.

He used to let a lot of things affect him.

Previous plays, uh,

bad shot turnover, he would carry it with him

to the next play.

And what he saw from me is how I wouldn't do that.

I'd stay in the moment.

[Ron] I was only different psychologically

when I was a Laker because I had more help.

So all the work that Donnie Walsh did,

and all the work that my counselors did,

it led me up to the Lakers.

[Donnie] Well, I hope that we had something to do with that.

That was a -- a tough price to pay for it.

Without your mental health, I mean, you can't do shit.

You can't be yourself.

You can only be a shell of yourself.

And I think Ron realized that and he realized to

get where he needed to go in life, he had to be right.

[Ron] It happened over time for me. I was determined.

After I got over the anger management

counseling sessions, it became sports psychology because

I never had a chance to just focus on the game.

You know? So when I was able to get past everything else,

then it was like,

"How am I focused in the fourth quarter?"

It became fun.

[Lamar] It's game seven in LA.

Paul Pierce is from LA.

There's no way we can let him walk out there

with that trophy.

The night before, I called Dr. Santhi and said,

"I need you to come tomorrow." [laughs]

And she hopped on the flight, came from Houston.

We had a session after the shoot-around.

Well, we just talked about, um, I hated Paul Pierce.

[laughs]

That's really what that was about. I'm not gonna lie.

I hated Paul Pierce.

Not because I hated him as a person.

On the court, like I said, I have to build up hate.

But that hate, it -- it got in the way.

I did not want it getting in -- in the way.

[Lamar] And it was -- it was just real intense.

It was tooth and nail.

We couldn't rely on Kobe just to get it done.

[commentator] Bryant nearly falls, gets back up,

... puts it up, and it grazes the rim.

Artest with the rebound!

[Ron] I just wanted to be focused on the game.

That's all I wanted.

And one of the things that we practiced was breathing.

Don't matter if you're fighting for post position,

don't matter if it's shooting a free throw,

don't matter if you're locking somebody up or dunking,

the breath was always the same.

[indistinct shouting]

-No more threes! -Hey!

Kobe switched up, and then when -- when ... came down,

you didn't switch!

Come on, now! This shit ain't over!

Let's end it! We gotta end it!

And I'm just taking the same breaths. Throughout the game,

no matter how fast the game is going.

It was a technique that we practiced,

and it took me a while to master, you know.

And I was able to do that throughout the play-offs.

[commentator] Coming up on a minute remaining.

I've had teammates in the past that were scared

to shoot that ball.

And, uh... You know, when I kicked it to him

and he loaded up to shoot the ball...

[Ron] Paul, he took one step back, I came back.

I was just kind of like, "Go in, go in, go in, go in."

It wasn't so much like "Don't shoot it."

It was more like "Just go in."

[commentator] Bryant looking.

Artest, that's a three.

[cheering]

Lakers by six...

[Lamar] I was right there.

I was ready for him to swing it one more time, 'cause I was

ready to shoot that bitch.

And he got it, and he lined up like he always does,

straight up, and he made it.

[commentator] The Lakers repeat back-to-back titles!

The LA Lakers, the 2010 NBA champions!

First, I want to thank everybody in my hood.

[N.O.R.E.] When I seen him do that -- [laughs]

I just...

...I just looked and I just looked at all

my Queensbridge buddies,

And I just remember just

looking at my guys, you know.

Being honored, like, how do you -- how do you do that?

How do you win, like, one of the biggest honors

and you shout-out

one of the craziest projects in the world.

Notorious. People definitely don't want to go there.

And you stand there and you shout them out.

I definitely want to thank my doctor, Dr. Santhi,

my, um, my psychiatrist.

I started laughing. [laughs]

Only Ronnie would get up and thank his psychiatrist

for winning the championship.

She really helped me relax a lot.

Thank you so much.

[Mark] To me, it was his three-pointers

that saved the game,

beat the Boston Celtics in the seventh game at Staples.

Saved Kobe's reputation. At least, in part.

And what does he do? The guy thanks his shrink.

If that's not an evolved man, I don't know what is.

[Ron] So difficult to play...

And so much commotion going on in the play-offs,

and she helped me relax.

I thank you so much.

-Ron, you were able to hit -- -I knocked down that three

just like you told me.

Who gets to have his worst part seen

on national TV

and rescue himself

by copping to it?

"Okay, I'm a little crazy.

I -- I -- I don't use the term casually.

But okay, you got -- I'm --

I gotta take my meds. I'm gonna thank my shrink."

How many people are big enough to say that?

[cheering and shouting]

One of the best defenders of all time.

You saw it this series.

One of the best ever!

Ever!

[Ron] I got Wheaties!

I got a Wheaties box! Get my Wheaties box.

I got Wheaties!

-You don't seem excited! -[laughter]

I'm leaving!

Y'all don't seem excited. I'm all excited.

I feel like a -- I feel like the oddball.

I never saw Ron that happy or that -- that excited.

Hey, people over there on your laptops!

[laughter]

Hey!

Hey, all the way over there on your laptop!

-Acknowledge me, please! -[laughter]

Hey!

It was he was like -- Like --

like in a manic state, so to speak.

This is Diamond, my daughter, and my wife.

This my son, Jeron.

This is my sister, Angelica.

She got to meet Kobe, she's so happy.

This is my mom.

This is my big daughter.

-Where's Ron-Ron? -Ron-Ron's with Kobe.

Ron-Ron's with Kobe?

My other son's with Kobe instead of me, huh?

All right, whatever. This is my dad.

You see his muscles?

I think the championship validated me because...

...the career that I was supposed to have, I had.

I hit a big-ass shot.

He passed me the ball. He never passes me the ball.

And he passed me the ball.

Kobe passed me the ball. And I shot a three.

If ... shoot the three, I heard him.

And he's the zen master, so he can speak to you without...

[laughter] You know?

He can speak to you, and he don't need a microphone,

he just -- You can hear him in your head.

"Ron, don't shoot, don't shoot."

[laughter]

I said, "Whatever. Bong!"

Whoo! Yes!

[Stephen] Everything he does is -- is sincere.

As misunderstood as he is,

I think he felt it meant more to him,

and it would mean more coming from him

to these people if I'm thanking you at my highest point.

I'm winning the championship, I got a ring.

I got all eyes on me.

When I was younger, I bailed out on my Indiana team.

I was so young, so egotistical,

and I bailed out on Donnie, um,

Larry, Jermaine...

I wanted to let them know, like, you know, on --

national TV, like, you know, "Thank you.

Um, and I appreciate you guys and always wish

I could've won with you guys,

and thank you guys." 'Cause they was always there for me.

I think, at that time, in 2010, um,

it was still very raw.

You know, we were still, you know, still on the --

on the probation.

You know, um, we were still the team with a lot of

remnants of -- of -- of that situation.

And then to see him do everything he did

leading up into the brawl

and then basically have our team dismantled

because of that, to go to another team and win it...

That's a hard pill to -- That's a hard pill to swallow.

And I feel some -- sometimes like a coward, you know,

when I see those guys, 'cause it's like man,

now I'm on the Lakers, we got a chance to win.

I had a chance to win with you guys, you know?

And I feel, you know, almost like a coward.

God says, "Forgive -- Forgive everybody."

But at the time, I had never even had

a conversation with Ron.

I was not happy for him when he won the championship.

The next person I'm about -- I'm about to bring out,

I've known since I was 12 years old.

-Um -- -[cheering]

Uh, we come from the same family tree in New York City

of basketball, and, uh, I just want to let him know

that his family's proud of him.

The one and only, Ron Artest.

[cheering]

I really don't care about the ring. I just wanted to win.

I hate losing.

The -- the ring's not important.

I don't even wear jewelry.

So, um, so what else can you do with the ring?

So I had interest in helping people, you know, who --

or trying to bring awareness to, you know, mental health

and everything like that.

And I was like, "Wow, you know maybe the ring"

and then it was that simple. I was like, "Yeah, it's perfect"

You know, uh, that's something that can, um, help others.

Something materialistic, you know.

We raffled it. The strategy was to raise

enough money to give back to

some mental health institutions.

P. Diddy said he would pay $220,000 for it -- [laughs]

which is pretty cool. I said, "That's not gonna be enough."

And I raised $670,000 in three months.

And the person who won the raffle, his mom

had mental health issues.

It's Ron being Ron, you know?

He -- he's gonna say or do a lot of things that most people

would look at and be like, "What?"

But he's doing it from his heart.

Yes, how's everybody doing today? Yes.

I went through, um, parenting counseling,

I went through anger management counseling,

I went through marriage counseling, and I was like,

"It was so expensive, but it helped me."

So I'm like, "How can a kid in East LA,

in Queensbridge projects,

in Detroit, you know, in Little Rock, Arkansas,

how can they get the same help, you know,

that I've -- that I've gotten?

You know, without paying so much."

You should never be surprised with Ron Artest's --

what Ron Artest does.

You know, most of the things that he does is --

is selfless.

Let's not lose sight of the completely unpredictable

beauty in the arc of his story.

He starts off in Queensbridge

with his father beating him up to toughen him.

We know that he's impaired, and he ends up

winning the title, thanking his shrink.

How great is that?

And when you think of mental health, you know,

I don't think you have to be, um,

you know afraid. It doesn't mean you're crazy.

That just means that, you know, um, you have

some issues in your life and you're a young teenager

or a young kid,

you know, that does not know how, you know, to handle it.

And...

This is gonna be a way where, I think, you know,

you'll be able to talk to somebody about your problems.

I reached out to some Twitter followers saying,

"Anybody that can find me this man, I'll take you to lunch."

I didn't say his name because

I didn't want people to think I'm looking for John Green

for a fight.

It was in the summertime.

We were actually getting ready to go out jetskiing.

This fan said, "I found a number, you owe me lunch."

I called the number, his wife answered.

I told her who I was, she was like, "Get the F out of here.

Stop playing a prank."

She was like, "Excuse me? This is who? What?

I'm -- I'm, like, looking at her going, "Who is it?"

And, uh,

she looks at me with her eyes and her kind of mouth

wide open and she's kind of handing me the phone

and she goes, "It's Ron."

I said, "Ron? Ron who?" And she goes,

"It's Ron Artest."

So I grabbed the phone, I said, "Hello?"

So I hear this voice on the other end of the phone,

real soft-spoken.

He says, "Hey, John?" And I said, "Yeah."

And he goes, "Hey, this is Ron."

John answers the phone.

"Hey, Ron. What's up?" Like he knew I was calling.

This guy's crazy.

I was amazed that this guy actually went to the trouble

to pick up that, you know, 400 lb phone

and make a phone call to me.

I mean, I -- I thought about it for a long time,

and I was like, "Man, that's really amazing."

I reached out to John Green because...

Just to, like, get rid of, um, animosity and stuff.

I just don't like to hold grudges too long.

Some things don't make it right,

some things you take back.

John was a alcoholic and he had taken AA meetings.

He was going through things with his family.

And who knows what the kid who actually made the bet

was going through. [laughs]

So us three, we're pretty stupid-ass people.

[John] We were able to talk a lot about the -- the --

that night.

He shared with me that he's gone through some

mental illness and, uh, he's been seeing a counselor and

I've been through a lot of the same situations myself,

you know, with, uh, I'm a recovering alcoholic.

I remember turning on the TV maybe four, five years ago

and I saw him and the guy, um...

basically are friends now.

And that touched me the wrong way.

Because that impacted a lot of people.

That was very personal to me.

I watched -- I -- it's hard to watch a city

be stripped down like that.

Out of all the times that I tried to reach out to Ron,

I tried to be a good teammate to him,

and then you go and you reach out to this guy.

Literally reached out and found -- found the guy.

But never spoke to me.

So that was -- that was a problem.

[Ron] And Jermaine always, always was there for me.

Always -- always was there for me.

More than anyone.

[Jermaine] He got my number.

He's reached out to me multiple times talking

about his regrets towards me and the Pacers and --

And I knew it was really --

he's really thinking about this.

And our friendship is now just starting.

[Ron] It's years and years and years of psychology

and then, um...

...and that's it. "Content" is a great word.

I love content. Content is very important.

A lot of people's not content.

Metta is receiving the mental health heroes award

because of his courage and willingness to come forward

and talk about mental health.

This is not common, as you know,

amongst professional athletes.

But Metta is setting the tone and bringing attention

to mental health disorders

and the importance of seeking help.

So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Metta to the podium.

[cheers and applause]

[Ron] I was affected by mental health.

Uh, my dad had functioned on medication.

My auntie has been in institutions

since she was -- since I was 10

and I'm 38 now. And, um,

and one of her sons has been locked away in institutions.

My little sister is, um, uh,

been in and out of institutions since she was 13.

She's about 23, 24 now.

And she's trying to get off medication and

trying to make a life for herself. And so...

I'm like, "The way I played defense

is the way I attack this."

It was the last day of my game with the Lakers.

I was post-traumatic syndrome.

I was going through a little bit.

I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. What am I --

what am I gonna do? I have nothing to do this morning.

I'm not preparing for a next season next year."

And that was kind of haunting.

I got myself together

and I called, uh, UCLA.

I said, "I want to go back to school."

And I went to UCLA and took digital analytics.

Then I signed up for a coding class,

with technology being very important.

So I got a digital marketing team

and my digital marketing team,

I mean, we can do anything, you know?

Books... [laughs]

...sneakers -- [laughs] We can market anything.

Can I have a hug before you go?

You all right? You good? Give me a hug.

I'm happy with my kids. My kids are doing well.

They're smart, and I'm so proud of my children.

Happy with where -- where I'm at.

I got a pretty simple lifestyle. [laugh]

It's not too complicated.

Don't worry about fucking up.

Get your basketball body going.

If you've got two people in front of you,

if you've got a little bit of space, attack that shit.

Great thing to my mind about Ron Artest,

the everlasting accomplishment

is that you see athletes all the time

come back from drugs, come back from orthopedic ruin,

come back from jail time.

Who comes back from what we dismiss as crazy?

You know how much balls it takes to come back from crazy?

[Ron] People evolve, man. That's -- that's it.

People evolve.

It took a long time to get there...

...to be great. [laughs]

I never thought I would be able to laugh about it.

And it wasn't a consistently great career, stats-wise,

but it was definitely a great moment,

and that's gonna go down in history. It's recorded.

Interterrestrial aliens don't really give a shit. [laughs]

But we down here on Earth give a shit.

Hell of a moment.

Unless, somehow, all the electricity goes out

in the world,

that moment's gonna be replayed a long time.

♪It's the Q to the B with the M-O-B-B♪

♪Queensbridge Brooklyn and we D-double-E-P♪

♪Y'all wish I lived the life I live♪

♪Ayo Prodigy, tell 'em what this is Dunn♪

Somebody asked him one day,

"Who's the illest player you ever played against?"

He said, "Mike Chatfield."

Yo, listen to me.

I was in DFY with Mike Chatfield.

I could ne-- Listen.

I could never steal the ball from him.

Like, I was good at, like, getting the ball.

He would just be like this --

So when he said that, I was like, "Ahh!"

He said Mike Chatfield!

He could've said he played against Michael Jordan

was the hardest person he played against.

He could've said Kobe! He could've said LeBron!

He said Mike fucking Chatfield, yo!

That's amazing! I was in jail with him!

...I'm so sorry.

I went too far. I went too far.

Okay, let's get back to the question.

What was it? You didn't even ask that question.

I'm so-- I'm so sorry I went there.

[commentator] He's not the perfect player,

he's not the perfect person, but anybody who knows him well

swear by his loyalty and what a big heart he has.

♪Yo, Sevada d-d-drop that beat♪

♪minimal synth beats♪

♪♪♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three-three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back- back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Back to three back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three-three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪ Artest, back to three♪

♪minimal synth beats♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪