ZZE916
Bench
Nothing new here:
December 17, 2007
No Stranger to Trouble, Artest Finds a New Perspective
By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI
Ron Artest and the Sacramento Kings were greeted by a cold, pelting sleet when they arrived in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon.
Artest, the former St. John’s star who is no stranger to stormy weather, boarded the team bus and called his wife, Kimsha, to check on their 4-year-old daughter, Diamond.
“She’s doing all right,” Artest said in a telephone interview after making that call to his Indianapolis home. “She’s hanging in there.”
Diamond, the youngest of Artest’s four children, was born with one kidney. Recently, doctors in Indianapolis discovered that a cancerous tumor had grown on the kidney, and now Diamond is receiving chemotherapy treatments.
Suddenly, a different kind of trouble has found Artest, a talented but volatile player who was suspended for the last 73 games and the playoffs of the 2004-5 N.B.A. season for his involvement in a brawl with fans during a game at Detroit. Artest, then with the Indiana Pacers, became enraged when a fan doused him with beer.
“After that fight, David Stern sided with a felon over me,” Artest said of the N.B.A. commissioner. “The guy who threw beer on me was already on parole.”
In January 2005, Artest was traded to the Kings, but some 2,200 miles could not distance him from more trouble.
In February, Placer County Animal Services in Sacramento took Artest’s Great Dane and placed it in protective custody because of a failure to provide proper sustenance.
In March, Artest was arrested at his Sacramento home after a dispute with his wife. Two months later, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, and the N.B.A. subsequently suspended him for the first seven games of the season.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/sports/basketball/17artest.html
December 17, 2007
No Stranger to Trouble, Artest Finds a New Perspective
By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI
Ron Artest and the Sacramento Kings were greeted by a cold, pelting sleet when they arrived in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon.
Artest, the former St. John’s star who is no stranger to stormy weather, boarded the team bus and called his wife, Kimsha, to check on their 4-year-old daughter, Diamond.
“She’s doing all right,” Artest said in a telephone interview after making that call to his Indianapolis home. “She’s hanging in there.”
Diamond, the youngest of Artest’s four children, was born with one kidney. Recently, doctors in Indianapolis discovered that a cancerous tumor had grown on the kidney, and now Diamond is receiving chemotherapy treatments.
Suddenly, a different kind of trouble has found Artest, a talented but volatile player who was suspended for the last 73 games and the playoffs of the 2004-5 N.B.A. season for his involvement in a brawl with fans during a game at Detroit. Artest, then with the Indiana Pacers, became enraged when a fan doused him with beer.
“After that fight, David Stern sided with a felon over me,” Artest said of the N.B.A. commissioner. “The guy who threw beer on me was already on parole.”
In January 2005, Artest was traded to the Kings, but some 2,200 miles could not distance him from more trouble.
In February, Placer County Animal Services in Sacramento took Artest’s Great Dane and placed it in protective custody because of a failure to provide proper sustenance.
In March, Artest was arrested at his Sacramento home after a dispute with his wife. Two months later, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, and the N.B.A. subsequently suspended him for the first seven games of the season.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/sports/basketball/17artest.html
