He lasted three seasons stateside as Metta World Peace before accepting an offer to play in China and creating more confusion. Metta Sandiford-Artest can change his name, but not his history. His NBA rap sheet includes 86 technical fouls, 24 flagrant fouls and 11 ejections. Three of those 11 ejections came in playoff games. So, I guess that you can say that World Peace is over. You can follow this author on Twitter at RadRivas. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Nobody really understood that. If you wasn't Michael Jordan or Tim Duncan, you was considered thug, gangster. That's not the case with everyone. What do you think was the biggest misconception about you when you were playing? Everything people said was true. I'm from the streets, I'm from the hood. There's no misconception, it's just about accepting. Can you accept it? I'm not from where you're from.
I love where I'm from. I had a mother and father up to the age of Then they separated, and things started to go south for me emotionally. In our neighborhood, there was all sorts of things going on: drugs, violence, fighting, all type of things like that. That became normal.
It was fucked up, but we'll move on. No kid should have to go through that. So when you ask, "Is there a misunderstanding? You've just got to accept where we're from. Adam Silver recently spoke about how he hears all the time from NBA players, how they're unhappy these days. It feels like the NBA has been really progressive with those issues, but I'm curious how much you felt there might have been a stigma when you were playing. I would love to go back and check every name who wrote a story and then see the problems they had.
Did they get divorced? What did they go through? Do they have criminal records? I remember when people used to call me crazy, I got tired of worrying about it. I just didn't care anymore. They're not going to say it to my face.
Back in those days, I would just say whatever was on my mind, so I would just tell the media person to f-off. In , when I thanked my psychologist on television, it was still a stigma at that time, too, but I didn't care. People be going through things. The superhero had help. The superhero thanked a psychologist. View Iframe URL. I remember people made a big deal about that when that happened.
How much of that noise did you hear when people were calling you crazy? Luckily, when I would hear it, I couldn't contact each person and say "fuck you," so I just let it slide. Sometimes it did. I would say it showed when I was talking to the media, and I would say things or act out. People were like, "Why is Ron acting like that? He don't act like that. You got everybody attacking you from so many different angles, and not only that, you're going through your own shit.
There's a moment in the documentary where you talk about how, when you made it to the NBA, it magnified your own inner turmoil. Anything I was thinking or any characteristic I had, good or bad, it magnified it. It was spiraling out of control. Back in those days, you think alcohol or marijuana can help. Instead of having an occasional drink, you're doing it as a therapeutic thing. If you're drinking, thinking that's going to solve a problem, you're making it 20 times worse.
For me, getting my first check, it highlighted how I was really feeling. It was spent on things to suppress certain feelings. Going out, clubbing, drinking. At what point did you take to counseling? Did you find it helpful immediately, or was that something you had to warm up to over time? I was 13 when I first did counseling.
My whole family was going to counseling then. When I was 13, my apartment burned down. There was about 14 of us, maybe 15, maybe somebody else. We was in a three- or two-bedroom. Then when our apartment burned down, we had no place to stay for a little bit, so everybody was struggling.
We had nothing. Then we stayed in a shelter for a couple of days—everybody was scattered. In two weeks, housing got us an apartment and said, "Listen, we got a one-bedroom for you. Fifteen of you? All of us. It was fun as kids. And then about a month into that—maybe two months—they found a double apartment. We got a big apartment.
Five bedrooms, it was much better. There's not a lot of double apartments in Queensbridge. At that age, there was a lot of that stuff happening—and my parents separated at that age—so I went to go see counseling, free service on the 40 side of 10th Street.
It was tough going into that building, because people knew on the second floor of that building was where the therapist was. Sometimes people would make fun of you.
At 13 years old, that's not easy. You're trying to hide, you walk into the building trying to make sure nobody sees you. How did your apartment burn down? In my room, we had this crazy electrical wire out. They fixed it sometimes, but then, for a couple of years, they didn't fix it. Let's just say you're playing extremely well, but you're not emotionally there. To find balance, you got to go in the opposite direction sometimes, which will pull you from your greatness.
But for me, I had to take a couple of steps back from giving my all to the game. I had to give a little bit to me personally. It was unfortunate because I was in the prime of my career but, in the end, I felt better. It took a long time. Though, I would say about the age of 28, 29 was where I started really being able to understand what was going on. On thanking his psychologist , Dr. A lot of therapists actually reached out. I know players that were going through stuff also, different issues than what I was going through.
A lot of therapists hit me back [saying], "Thank you, you made my job easier just by coming out like that. I thought it was really good because I didn't realize they were actually going through a few things. And I thought that was big. Look at the new leagues coming up.
They're not necessarily starting with mental health, they're starting with the business of basketball. But the NBA, they got a [financial] cushion and they got the resources to add that. There are a ton of case studies that show that they should have that. It doesn't cost much every year to have a program.
And I think they're doing a good job. I'm I'm just talking to youth about [mental health]. I actually try to coach kids that kind of grew up similar, give them some different options.
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