Artest and Kobe: A Match Made in Asylum Heaven

Ron Artest was the craziest player to ever robe in an Indiana Pacers uniform. He was a pretty nut Sacramento King also. Ok, so Ron Artest is just plain crazy.

Void of basketball Artest might be locked up with Randle Patrick McMurphy getting fed little red capsules by Nurse Ratched. Straight up, Ron Artest is pull-down-your pants, throw a TV-monitor, make a terrible rap album kind of crazy.

Aside from his extreme bouts of insanity, it’s pretty amazing how Artest has managed his way out of the notoriously hard Queens bridge, New York, found his way out of a year long suspension that resulted from one of the most vicious and outrageous fights ever seen in American sports and now finds himself teamed with one of the most dynamic basketball players in NBA history.

Kobe Bryant, in his own rights, is all types of crazy. No, he’s never openly called out Charles Barkley for being over-rated (although he’s probably thought it), nor has he Bulls-just-to-get-employee-discount" target="_blank">applied for a second job at Circuit City during his tenure in the NBA (that was narrowly avoided after his little incident in Colorado), but Kobe Bryant clearly has some issues—although different and less life threatening than Ron Artest’s. 

His on-court antics are second to none. Yes, Kobe has come leaps and strides from his days of rumbling with the likes of Reggie Miller, but his trash-talk-for-no-good-reason to NBA nice-guy Shane Battier, in the Lakers second round series with the Rockets during this year’s playoffs, only illuminates how odd Kobe’s approach to the game truly is—he will scratch, claw and step-on-your-face to get his way to the top, getting the most out of his teammates on the road there.

This is exactly why Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest will be a match made in Phil Jackson heaven.

        As long as Artest doesn’t lose his pillbox on his way to LA, Kobe’s own mental instability will keep Artest under control and following the game plan. Artest knows Kobe’s on-court wrath—and he surely knows how deadly he can be in a seven-game series, but Artest will learn, in a short period of time, what it’s like to play on a championship team with an MVP who’s won four rings.

And maybe, if Artest can control his inner urges, he'll be the craziest player to ever win a ring of his own. Kobe will get my vote as the craziest to ever win five.