NBA Season's Prospects Look Dim as Ron Artest Takes Headlines with Name Change
Remember Ron Artest? Sure you do. He was the mercurial and at times hot headed small forward who played for St. John's in college. He was drafted by the Bulls, and then seemed to find a home in Indiana with the Pacers until he played a big role in a massive brawl between the Pacers and Pistons in Detroit on November 19th 2004.
That would lead to him bouncing around the league—Sacramento, Houston and eventually the Los Angeles Lakers with head coach Phil Jackson, who had found a way to get Dennis Rodman to play with in a structured team concept back in the '90s. In Los Angeles, Artest would play a key offensive and defensive role in helping to lead the Lakers to their 17th NBA title in 2010.
Ron Artest had come full circle. He was still considered a bit odd or out of the mainstream, but he was no longer considered a team cancer or, even worse, a dangerous and violent individual. Today Ron Artest changed his legal name to "Metta World Peace." That's a bit odd—it's not really a big deal though. What is a big deal is that it's the biggest NBA news today.
That's a bad sign for a league that is currently on a short timer with regards to the upcoming season. The lockout that has both owners and players in a negotiating stalemate continues to be in a holding pattern.The latest negotiations featured far less movement than the vowels and consonants in the player formally known as Ron Artest's name.
Artest's move will probably elicit a number of chuckles and perhaps maybe even some criticism, but in reality it's not all that big a deal. There are worse things than a player changing his legal name to one that means something along the lines of "friendship, love, kindness and world peace." It's got more than a fair share of '60s counter culture to it, but it's a lot better than something that would suggest violence or rebellion.
The NBA could use some peace right now. The players and owners are not getting along and they're not making much in the way of progress. The start of the NBA season is in peril, and it's being held in that position by a demand for a hard salary cap by the owners. The players would prefer to share more of the revenue and in turn have the owners share revenues as well. There doesn't appear to be much common ground between the two sides and the reputation of commissioner David Stern is now hanging in the balance.
Stern has presided over an era of unprecedented growth and profit for the league. Under Stern's watch, the NBA has gone from a struggling national league to a worldwide brand. Yes, Stern was lucky enough to be commissioner during the peak of the Bird/Magic era as well as the entire rise and domination of Michael Jordan. Those have been huge breaks for both Stern and the league.
On the other side, Stern has already presided over one lengthy labor dispute. The 1999 work stoppage cost the league almost half the regular season, and in the end the players union caved on a number of key issues to get back on the court. The results should have been a win for the owners, but now they're claiming to be on the losing end once again. Of the three major sports, Major League Baseball is the only one that has had a labor stoppage cost the sport a postseason. No sport has had more than one major work stoppage since the mid 1980s. The NFL had a brief work stoppage in 1987, baseball had 1994 and basketball had 1999.
Can the NBA afford another long protracted work stoppage? That's a question for which no one really knows the answer. A better question would be why would any of these owners want to find out? Maybe Artest, or Metta, can bring his new enlightenment to the negotiating table? These two sides certainly could use a dose of friendship, love and kindness.
