Ron Artest: Donating His Championship Ring

Outside wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:Thanks, Outside... Going forward, I will attempt to be better at not misdiagnosing. My bad.

dbrown,

Not to worry. As I mentioned, he is one strange individual and has done some epically stupid things, so he's earned his reputation as a flake/oddball/idiot. I just happened to see or read about his charity efforts when he was with Houston; otherwise, I probably would've assumed that the championship ring deal was nothing more than a stunt, too.

hes still that attention starved child.I totally lost any possible glimmer of respect for him when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show.Anyone see that? He came out topless in his underwear claimimg he didn't have enough time to get dressed,then proceeded to put on his clothes......pathetic was too weak a word to use,I feel sorry for him.On the court hes talented no question,but he's not clean like Ben Wallace,hes always been a cheapshot artist,if it was up to me I'd sic Perk or Baby on him.

Clearly we have to look at Ron's entire body of work, as we are all pointing out.

This reminds me of someone I used to work with in my business. Great, great relentless salesman. Ran circles around everyone. But his personal life and lack of social graces put the company at risk because no one knew what he would do or how he would act next in a given situation. If he could just sell and never come in the office, never talk to anyone, that would be his ideal situation. The owners caught on early and canned him. To this day, I still toil with hiring him in my own business, but I just can't ever seem to get over his whole body of work. Way to extreme to pull the trigger.

And as we all know, somewhere down the road, Ron Artest may be a Celtic and we'll have to couch/retract everything like we did with Shaq, Stephon, etc. We know how Danny likes the bad boys and giving them a chance.

I think I'll just put Ron A. in the Dennis Rodman extremes category for now, unless anyone else objects.

.....if he would have just gone and done it fine,but natuarally he had to have a press conference and tell everyone and.......your the greatest Ron......he cares,hes misunderstood.......BS......hes a lowlife cheapshot punk that backed away from confrontation when a real man got in his face and shoved him.

did I ever mention I want to see Baby clothesline him?

cowens/oldschool wrote:did I ever mention I want to see Baby clothesline him?

Your biggest objection is that he's a cheapshot artist, yet what you really want is to get in a cheap shot. I'm not sure how that logic works.

Here's an excerpt from the article on nba.com (http://www.nba.com/2010/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/09/08/artest.mental.health/index.html).

"Artest will save lives. Maybe not directly from funds generated by the ring auction and maybe not specifically because of the appearance Thursday with Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, the co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus and author of the Mental Health in Schools Act the pair hopes will become federal legislation. But a public figure of Artest's stature stepping forward and addressing his success with counseling will undoubtedly encourage others, of any age group, to seek help to avert a crisis."

He's promoting mental health awareness. It's a difficult topic, unfortunately full of shame for a lot of people. He's lending his name and small measure of celebrity to remove some of the stigma associated with this, which he can't do by remaining anonymous. He's working with a congressional representative to help pass a piece of legislation. Yet what you want to do for his effort is clothesline him. I get it -- you despise the guy. But that doesn't mean you have to demonize every thing he does.

As someone who has family who have dealt with this issue on a personal basis, I find your reaction disappointing. What would your reaction be if Dave Cowens did the same thing that Ron did here?

The publicity (not the money generated) is the most important aspect of what Ron Ron is doing here. Anyone can give money, but far fewer people can command media attention. And this is a cause that needs publicity.

When I was growing up in the '70's, there was, and still is to a large extent, a huge social stigma about therapy. Back then, we thought the only people who went to see a psychiatrist were truly insane.

I have come to learn about the value of therapy as an adult, though, and I'm a firm believer in the benefits of therapy at certain times in one's life. For my ex-wife and I, it was invaluable in our divorce process, and we have both never been happier in our personal lives than we have ben in the years which have passed since.

But therapy is still viewed skeptically by large parts of our population.

I think it's tremendous that Ron was so open about the work he did with his therapist and talked about how much she helped him when he was interviewed after Game 7 on national tv. Most athletes would be way too proud (or worried about their "brand") to talk about their work with a therapist in a post-game interview.

Can you imagine Queen James talking on tv about his work (in the third person of course) with a therapist ? No way.

So the fact that Ron is continuing to beat the drum (the ring auction is just a part of what he's doing to raise public awareness) espousing the benefits of therapy is a great thing, and I'm all for him (and anyone else) generating publicity to show that working with a therapist is a healthy, normal thing to do, and not some weird activity to be ashamed of.

Every person in our society would benefit from going to therapy, and our society as a whole would benefit as well. Good for Ron for using his public stature to show people that therapy is a good thing that can help you lead a better life, and not something that is only for people living in padded cells. More and more people are realizing this, but having someone like Ron as living proof of the benefits of therapy who is willing to talk about it goes a long way towards helping remove the stigma from it.

And ps-

Considering that Ron grew up in one of the worst projects in the US (the story about a guy getting stabbed in the chest with a broken off table leg on the basketball court is true), with very few positive role models and where a lot of his peers are now either dead or in jail, I'd say he's doing pretty well.

What do people always reference when they talk about what a bad guy Ron is ? The Malice at the Palace.

After Ron put a hard foul on Ben Wallace (no different than the Cs' fouls on Dwight Howard in the playoffs), Wallace responded by coming hard at Ron and hitting him with a solid forearm to the chest/neck. Ron then went and laid down on the scorer's table to cool off, after which some idiot threw a beer on his face, which prompted Ron's excursion into the stands.

He fought with a few fans, yet was demonized far worse than a guy like Leonard Little (killed a family in a drunk driving episode after repeated previous DUIs). Frankly, I would have probably done the same thing if I'd been in Ron's shoes, so I've never understood why people used it to make him such a villain.

Artest was suspended for an entire season, but I seem to remember a certain Boston sports team going into the stands and fighting with a number of its rival's fans, and the leader of the charge was only suspended for a handful of games.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8K7roZu3WU



Why is it that Terry O"Reilly was only suspended for 8 games and Artest was suspended for 73 plus the playoffs ?


Is it because fighting is acceptable in hockey, so it's more acceptable if the players fight the other team's fans ?

Or could it have something to do with the fact that O"Reilly was a white guy going into the stands that were mostly full of white people, whereas Artest is black and most of the fans at NBA games are white ?

So Artest was made an example of, as David Stern (for good reason) didn't want to have his paying customers, corporate sponsors and network partners thinking they would see a steady stream of "angry young black men" fulfilling a lot of white people's stereotypes by attacking fans in the stands.

I'm not saying Stern was wrong, as he needed to send a message, but the punishment far outweighed the crime, and that incident is what has shaped most people's opinions of Ron Ron.

Is Ron flaky and does he have his issues ? Yes.

Do we all have issues ? Yes.

I'm just sayin'.

therapy can help a lot of things. i've been in and out much of my adult life, and grown as a result of it. (course, part of my role is as a therapist, and some of us go at th e drop of a hat. other therapists, though, have every bit as hard a time asking for a little help as the rest of the population does.)

has Ron come a long way from where he started? doubtless.
does he perhaps have a ways to go yet? likely.

but in truth, who doesn't? few ...

Michael

bigpygme wrote:therapy can help a lot of things. i've been in and out much of my adult life, and grown as a result of it. (course, part of my role is as a therapist, and some of us go at th e drop of a hat. other therapists, though, have every bit as hard a time asking for a little help as the rest of the population does.)

has Ron come a long way from where he started? doubtless.
does he perhaps have a ways to go yet? likely.

but in truth, who doesn't? few ...

Michael

I've never been to formal therapy, but I've spent a lifetime confronting my issues as they rose to merit appraisal and trying to move forward all the time. I now proudly say that I've come full circle. I'm back to being crazy as a bedbug. That's the bad news. The good news is that the weather is always great in Bob's World.

I believe the technical term is "compensation" to maintain the perception of mental acuity. :-)

How did that old joke by Woody Allen from "Annie Hall" go?
"Doctor, doctor! My brother-in-law thinks he's a chicken!"
"Well, why haven't you turned him in?"
"I would except I need the eggs".

bob

.

My ex-wife (of 20 years) and I tried marriage counseling when the marriage got into trouble. He had a four-session "package." We went jointly, they I went alone, then she went along, then we wound it up with a joint visit. At which he pontificated as follows: "You're the two most complicated people I've ever met, and I can't do anything for you."

I joke about the experience, but I would never joke about the therapy profession. In the first place, he probably had a point. We couldn't even do the divorce thing normally; we had to go on a "divorce tour" to Santo Domingo to wrap it up in a hurry. Second, I've actually heeded his words in trying to keep things as simple as possible in this second marriage of 31+ years.

As in any profession, there are certainly less-than-wonderful therapists, but the profession as a whole is capable of some amazing results if their clients are willing to be open to the experience and work at it.

Sam

Outside wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:did I ever mention I want to see Baby clothesline him?

Your biggest objection is that he's a cheapshot artist, yet what you really want is to get in a cheap shot. I'm not sure how that logic works.

Here's an excerpt from the article on nba.com (http://www.nba.com/2010/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/09/08/artest.mental.health/index.html).

"Artest will save lives. Maybe not directly from funds generated by the ring auction and maybe not specifically because of the appearance Thursday with Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, the co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus and author of the Mental Health in Schools Act the pair hopes will become federal legislation. But a public figure of Artest's stature stepping forward and addressing his success with counseling will undoubtedly encourage others, of any age group, to seek help to avert a crisis."

He's promoting mental health awareness. It's a difficult topic, unfortunately full of shame for a lot of people. He's lending his name and small measure of celebrity to remove some of the stigma associated with this, which he can't do by remaining anonymous. He's working with a congressional representative to help pass a piece of legislation. Yet what you want to do for his effort is clothesline him. I get it -- you despise the guy. But that doesn't mean you have to demonize every thing he does.

As someone who has family who have dealt with this issue on a personal basis, I find your reaction disappointing. What would your reaction be if Dave Cowens did the same thing that Ron did here?

right,when I see him knee Ray Allen and elbow Rondo in the face,and constantly banging Pierce all over,if I was on the team I'd gladly cheapshot him back,you can't let a thug bully you in life or on a basketball court.The essence of Dave Cowens game was dishing out and taking punishment at high speeds and high altitudes,he took it as good as he dished it.If your reaction is to do nothing when kneed or elbowed,were different cats.