http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/14246259p-15064189c.html
The Artest factor
After playing much of the season without an identity or much excitement - and at the bottom of the standings - the Kings made themselves relevant again with the trade for Ron Artest
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Staff Writer
Let's answer the first question first: Ron Artest makes exactly this much difference. He absolutely does. He's the difference between a loser and a winner. It's not even an issue to discuss.
The Kings, pre-Artest, were talented and dysfunctional, occasionally elegant and ultimately spineless. They had this amazing ability to win games without inspiring long-term confidence.
Or, as executive guru Geoff Petrie put it the other day in his classic Petrie-ese, "The personal dynamics didn't seem to be working." Petrie also said this: "Our team didn't really have an identity."
And bingo: We have a winner.
The Kings of this playoff vintage do have an identity, and that identity is almost completely wrapped up in the persona of Ron Artest.
What does that mean?
It means that, at times, they'll appear almost hopelessly cocky. It means that they carry with them a redemptive quality that is so rare in sports it ought to be bronzed, a team going from dead-dog also-ran to the firstround opponent nobody is happy to see coming. And much of it done on the backs of NBA outcasts and character suspects like Artest and Bonzi Wells.
That's a little magic trick, that is. It means that other teams now see the Kings as a group that will challenge them for every minute of all four quarters, even if that doesn't actually materialize every night. But the Artest work dossier suggests exactly that kind of effort, and so be it.
"Beyond his skills? It's the fact that he never gives up on a play," says coach Rick Adelman. "He just never gives up. Even when he gets beat, he's still involved in the play, and that's something the other guys can see."
To be a team cast in the Artest image means that, occasionally, weird stuff is going to wind up in the papers. Specifically? It means that, via Artest and the media pipeline, the Kings now officially project such happy thoughts as that they'll take out the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Artest uttered exactly that last week, and no one on his own team bothered to qualify the prediction. What are they going to say? Artest sounded bonkers, too, when he joined the 18-24 Kings and immediately proclaimed them playoff-bound.
Then he backed up his words with his play, and what veteran Corliss Williamson says ensued was, very simply, "a shot of adrenaline" for an organization that had spent the last eight or nine months looking like it had made a permanent switch to decaf.
Now the Kings are making their eighth consecutive playoff appearance under Adelman, drawing huge favorite San Antonio in that first round. And not only does Artest say it's a good thing, he says he loves his team's chances beyond that.
"Because I think we do have a different identity now," Artest says quietly, sitting in a mesh office chair at courtside of the Kings' brightly-lit practice facility.
"I know we didn't reach our peak yet. We're still not cutting hard and not setting hard enough screens. But we've built our identity. And we can win games against anybody."
Let's answer the second question second: Sure, there's a friction effect at work here. There is, let us be clear, a longterm pressure currently building. How does this sort of thing happen otherwise?
Artest says the things that other players won't say, and there is friction that comes from that. Artest is the one who put his team's playoff chances out there back in late January. He's the one who now says the Spurs are going down.
He's the one who said before a game against the Lakers that he would stifle Kobe Bryant (Bryant subsequently scored 36), and the one who said he ought to be Defensive Player of the Year, and the one who said his MVP vote, if he had one, would go directly to that really good forward for the Kings, Artest.
He's the one who now sits in this chair, after putting himself through a post-practice workout that kept him on the court an additional 45 minutes, and calmly extols the virtues of... well, him. Him and others.
"You look at our roster, and we've got me and Bonzi Wells on the wings," Artest says. "How much better wings can you ask for?
"What more can a coach or organization ask for than Ron Artest and Bonzi Wells on the wings? And Mike Bibby at the point? And Brad Miller at center? And Shareef Abdur-Rahim? I think any organization would want that five."
He delivers his words so quietly that you find yourself almost nodding in agreement until you remember that the Kings are, in fact, the No. 8 seed in the West, not No. 1. But Artest isn't so far wrong, really. Since his acquisition, Sacramento has piled up a 26-14 record. That's a contending clip, not merely a playoffqualifying one.
But Artest never waits for the numbers to bear him out in such matters, anyway. He says what he says, and then he does what he does.
He plays defense like it matters more than anything, at a level even beyond Doug Christie, who was so good and so vital for the Kings team that made the Western Conference Finals in 2002. Yet Artest still has the legs and the game to get things done on the other end, scoring, passing and rebounding.
He has the physical skills. Of course, that was never the issue.
The issue was always which Artest might step forward, the good, team-oriented, hard-working Ron or the CD-promoting, game-missing, suspension-brawling Ron-Ron? That personality uncertainty was the reason the Indiana Pacers, having fielded so many lesser offers, were still holding onto Artest in January, when Petrie and Pacers GM Donnie Walsh finally worked the deal that sent Peja Stojakovic to the Eastern Conference.
And it's still the issue, albeit a muted one. Artest has been such a solid citizen since arriving in Sacramento that NBA Commissioner David Stern publicly patted him on the head during a teleconference last week, praising Artest as having turned in an All-Star caliber season.
"In many ways," says Petrie, "Ron has been our most composed player."
But Artest does talk. You bet he does. And he won't stop talking, not to mention the fact that people won't stop talking about him, no matter how much the legend grows out of proportion with the reality.
Without detracting from Artest's work, this revival didn't happen off just the one move.
Wells got healthy and returned to the lineup. Abdur-Rahim slowly made his way back from the broken jaw that was wired shut for weeks and left him weak. Bibby and Miller and Kenny Thomas and the others learned how to play with a new cast of teammates.
"I believe we had the guys who had the type of mentality to do this," Williamson says. "But we just needed someone to kind of step up and lead that mentality, and that's exactly what Ron did when he came in."
Artest's court genius, then, flows primarily from his roles as a catalyst of effort and his ability to establish a group mentality. And he is happy to talk about that - and just about anything else that he feels like talking about.
"He's very engaging that way," Petrie says, "and sometimes candid to a fault."
And Artest's words, no matter how they're delivered, often create pressure. And pressure can move things (already documented, in terms of the Kings' improvement) or it can build until something bursts, which is the general consensus of what happened near the end of his time in Indianapolis.
Now?
"I like it here," Artest says. "I really do."
And that, of course, means it's time to answer the third question third: Ron Artest figures Sacramento is the place to be.
Asked about his future, Artest says he can "definitely" see himself playing for the Kings over the long haul. He likes the roster. He sees the possibilities.
He'd love the chance to go with this group from the start of a season and see what happens. "I like the town and, really, everything," Artest says.
"Hopefully, it all works out."
Here's the weird part: For the Kings, it essentially already did work out. They wanted a player. They took a risk. They salvaged a season and got an identity in return. The pressure and the friction, at this point, are simply the cost of doing business.
The Artest factor
After playing much of the season without an identity or much excitement - and at the bottom of the standings - the Kings made themselves relevant again with the trade for Ron Artest
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Staff Writer
Let's answer the first question first: Ron Artest makes exactly this much difference. He absolutely does. He's the difference between a loser and a winner. It's not even an issue to discuss.
The Kings, pre-Artest, were talented and dysfunctional, occasionally elegant and ultimately spineless. They had this amazing ability to win games without inspiring long-term confidence.
Or, as executive guru Geoff Petrie put it the other day in his classic Petrie-ese, "The personal dynamics didn't seem to be working." Petrie also said this: "Our team didn't really have an identity."
And bingo: We have a winner.
The Kings of this playoff vintage do have an identity, and that identity is almost completely wrapped up in the persona of Ron Artest.
What does that mean?
It means that, at times, they'll appear almost hopelessly cocky. It means that they carry with them a redemptive quality that is so rare in sports it ought to be bronzed, a team going from dead-dog also-ran to the firstround opponent nobody is happy to see coming. And much of it done on the backs of NBA outcasts and character suspects like Artest and Bonzi Wells.
That's a little magic trick, that is. It means that other teams now see the Kings as a group that will challenge them for every minute of all four quarters, even if that doesn't actually materialize every night. But the Artest work dossier suggests exactly that kind of effort, and so be it.
"Beyond his skills? It's the fact that he never gives up on a play," says coach Rick Adelman. "He just never gives up. Even when he gets beat, he's still involved in the play, and that's something the other guys can see."
To be a team cast in the Artest image means that, occasionally, weird stuff is going to wind up in the papers. Specifically? It means that, via Artest and the media pipeline, the Kings now officially project such happy thoughts as that they'll take out the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Artest uttered exactly that last week, and no one on his own team bothered to qualify the prediction. What are they going to say? Artest sounded bonkers, too, when he joined the 18-24 Kings and immediately proclaimed them playoff-bound.
Then he backed up his words with his play, and what veteran Corliss Williamson says ensued was, very simply, "a shot of adrenaline" for an organization that had spent the last eight or nine months looking like it had made a permanent switch to decaf.
Now the Kings are making their eighth consecutive playoff appearance under Adelman, drawing huge favorite San Antonio in that first round. And not only does Artest say it's a good thing, he says he loves his team's chances beyond that.
"Because I think we do have a different identity now," Artest says quietly, sitting in a mesh office chair at courtside of the Kings' brightly-lit practice facility.
"I know we didn't reach our peak yet. We're still not cutting hard and not setting hard enough screens. But we've built our identity. And we can win games against anybody."
Let's answer the second question second: Sure, there's a friction effect at work here. There is, let us be clear, a longterm pressure currently building. How does this sort of thing happen otherwise?
Artest says the things that other players won't say, and there is friction that comes from that. Artest is the one who put his team's playoff chances out there back in late January. He's the one who now says the Spurs are going down.
He's the one who said before a game against the Lakers that he would stifle Kobe Bryant (Bryant subsequently scored 36), and the one who said he ought to be Defensive Player of the Year, and the one who said his MVP vote, if he had one, would go directly to that really good forward for the Kings, Artest.
He's the one who now sits in this chair, after putting himself through a post-practice workout that kept him on the court an additional 45 minutes, and calmly extols the virtues of... well, him. Him and others.
"You look at our roster, and we've got me and Bonzi Wells on the wings," Artest says. "How much better wings can you ask for?
"What more can a coach or organization ask for than Ron Artest and Bonzi Wells on the wings? And Mike Bibby at the point? And Brad Miller at center? And Shareef Abdur-Rahim? I think any organization would want that five."
He delivers his words so quietly that you find yourself almost nodding in agreement until you remember that the Kings are, in fact, the No. 8 seed in the West, not No. 1. But Artest isn't so far wrong, really. Since his acquisition, Sacramento has piled up a 26-14 record. That's a contending clip, not merely a playoffqualifying one.
But Artest never waits for the numbers to bear him out in such matters, anyway. He says what he says, and then he does what he does.
He plays defense like it matters more than anything, at a level even beyond Doug Christie, who was so good and so vital for the Kings team that made the Western Conference Finals in 2002. Yet Artest still has the legs and the game to get things done on the other end, scoring, passing and rebounding.
He has the physical skills. Of course, that was never the issue.
The issue was always which Artest might step forward, the good, team-oriented, hard-working Ron or the CD-promoting, game-missing, suspension-brawling Ron-Ron? That personality uncertainty was the reason the Indiana Pacers, having fielded so many lesser offers, were still holding onto Artest in January, when Petrie and Pacers GM Donnie Walsh finally worked the deal that sent Peja Stojakovic to the Eastern Conference.
And it's still the issue, albeit a muted one. Artest has been such a solid citizen since arriving in Sacramento that NBA Commissioner David Stern publicly patted him on the head during a teleconference last week, praising Artest as having turned in an All-Star caliber season.
"In many ways," says Petrie, "Ron has been our most composed player."
But Artest does talk. You bet he does. And he won't stop talking, not to mention the fact that people won't stop talking about him, no matter how much the legend grows out of proportion with the reality.
Without detracting from Artest's work, this revival didn't happen off just the one move.
Wells got healthy and returned to the lineup. Abdur-Rahim slowly made his way back from the broken jaw that was wired shut for weeks and left him weak. Bibby and Miller and Kenny Thomas and the others learned how to play with a new cast of teammates.
"I believe we had the guys who had the type of mentality to do this," Williamson says. "But we just needed someone to kind of step up and lead that mentality, and that's exactly what Ron did when he came in."
Artest's court genius, then, flows primarily from his roles as a catalyst of effort and his ability to establish a group mentality. And he is happy to talk about that - and just about anything else that he feels like talking about.
"He's very engaging that way," Petrie says, "and sometimes candid to a fault."
And Artest's words, no matter how they're delivered, often create pressure. And pressure can move things (already documented, in terms of the Kings' improvement) or it can build until something bursts, which is the general consensus of what happened near the end of his time in Indianapolis.
Now?
"I like it here," Artest says. "I really do."
And that, of course, means it's time to answer the third question third: Ron Artest figures Sacramento is the place to be.
Asked about his future, Artest says he can "definitely" see himself playing for the Kings over the long haul. He likes the roster. He sees the possibilities.
He'd love the chance to go with this group from the start of a season and see what happens. "I like the town and, really, everything," Artest says.
"Hopefully, it all works out."
Here's the weird part: For the Kings, it essentially already did work out. They wanted a player. They took a risk. They salvaged a season and got an identity in return. The pressure and the friction, at this point, are simply the cost of doing business.
