In November of 2004, Ron Artest would fly into the stands of a game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons and fight a fan who had thrown a drink at him. While this wasn’t exactly new for him as a player, it was enough to set a reputation he would never escape. It certainly wasn’t unjustified, but it was a little sad.
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Artest, now known as Metta World Peace, has always been known as a troublemaker. Most great defenders are. His huge frame, combined with his excellent instincts and all-world mirroring, made him one of the first real positionless defenders before that was what was expected. He could easily guard 1-4.
This massive ability would typically mean a 10-year career with one team, but Metta bounced around a lot. Early in his career, Indiana was the only really good environment he was placed in. In that way, Artest was just always unlucky.
On the other side of things, Draymond Green had a similar starting reputation. He was an instigator at Michigan State. However, when he was drafted to the Golden State Warriors, he arrived on a team that would’ve kept him as a fringe bench player for years, but instead, he got a chance, and he grabbed it with both hands.
Still, even if he was never as bad as Artest, it’s not like Green ever escaped that label either. In 2015, the two met and got into an altercation. Now, years later, they came together on Green’s podcast, The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis, to remember the incident.
“Now, people go back and play the clip, and they’re like ‘oh, he knew better,'” joked Green, “I was actually so un-hip then that I didn’t know better. The person that people think I am now, I actually was then. I actually didn’t know better, I would’ve done anything.”
Young players often have to fight to gain any meaningful minutes and must establish themselves by consistently bringing a certain skill set. For Green, that was his voice, but that meant calling out defensive movements just as much as it did talking trash.
To Green’s credit, after he turned around and saw Metta, he evacuated the premises and found his way to the other side of the court. Draymond explained his choice by claiming his respect for the veteran swingman got in the way.
Green went into depth on that appreciation, “This guy in particular, I have the utmost respect for because of how he played the game, how he went about his business, to be a superstar player in the NBA but accept a role. I have never been a superstar in the NBA from a scoring standpoint, but I know what it means to accept a role.”
“I know what those two things mean… to take on that role to be a champion, I got the utmost respect for that,” finished Green.
It was a nice moment of respect for Artest, who unfortunately did not get very much in his day. While people were certainly amazed by his defense and ability on that end, all too often, his external actions would overshadow everything else.
But Artest remains jokey. He laughed when remembering the clip and said, “That clip that they had, the minute I saw it, I tweeted, I said ‘Draymond’s the illest, I respect him.’ They were trying to throw gas on the fire. Draymond ain’t scared of anybody, don’t try to throw me in an argument with Draymond.”
It’s clear the two have a deep respect for each other; Green sees Artest as his predecessor, while Artest knows that Draymond took his archetype to a new peak. In many ways, the two are a mirror for each other. Green was placed in a stable situation, but was never asked to play beyond his means. Artest was constantly in chaos, and while he eventually succumbed to it, he had far higher counting stats than Draymond ever could.
