Metta World Peace Misspells James Harden's Name in Twitter Apology

If you're going to say sorry to someone, it helps to spell the guy's name right.

And considering the circumstances that motivated Metta World Peace: Ron Artest's decision to take to Twitter to apologize to James Harden, a quick spell check or glance at the player's NBA page would have done the Los Angeles Lakers forward a "world" of good.

World Peace didn't direct his tweet at Harden (he spelled it 'Hardin' in the tweet), who has his own Twitter account, but rather at his followers—a move that might be construed as an attempt to snuff some of the flames that have been filming since viewers witnessed World Peace throw a vicious elbow at Harden during Sunday's NBA game between the Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The ''bow blow," which immediately followed a left-handed dunk by World Peace in the second quarter, connected flush with Harden's ear, knocking the third-year guard/forward to the ground and resulting in a concussion, according to USA Today.

Replays appeared to dispute World Peace's claims that the elbow was an accident and not a cheap shot. Even former Laker great Magic Johnson called it the latter (via Yahoo Sports).

Also according to Yahoo Sports, Artest is expected to be suspended by the league in the coming days. The only question is how long the suspension will last.

It's great that World Peace took the time while filling out his name change form last summer to make sure he had crossed all his T's.

What he should have done on Sunday was take the same sort of care with the man he'd assaulted.

While World Peace couldn't take back his petulant, disgusting act, he could at least show respect for Harden by spelling his name correctly.

But just as Sunday brought back flashes of the Ron Artest who'd stormed into the bleachers at the Palace of Auburn Hills back in 2004, his apology seemed to verify something untoward and vaguely sinister about the man.

In the end, it fell flat, just as Harden had to the Staples Center floor.

It said an awful lot that the ESPN commentary crew of Mike Breen and Jeff van Gundy, who were presiding over the game, both reverted to calling World Peace "Artest" as they rushed to describe the thrown elbow.

The old Artest had replaced his noble new moniker. Jekyll had morphed into Hyde.