Monday, July 16, 2007

Ron Artest: Humanitarian

The NBA suspended Ron Artest this week for the first 7 games of the 2007-2008 season for pleading no contest to a domestic violence charge back in March. Artest could not be immediately reached for comment because he was on a humanitarian mission in Kenya. Ron Artest, yes, this Ron Artest, is in Kenya according to ESPN.com

Artest left the country last week as part of an NBA Players Adssociation convoy spearheading a "Feeding One Million" drive, which calls for the traveling party to distribute 11 million pounds of rice to the needy in Kenya.

I'm a fan of Artest and this news shows the human side of arguably the best defender in the NBA (fuck Bruce Bowen). Artest replied to an email sent by ESPN with a short message apologizing to his family, teammates and fans for his involvement in the domestic violence dispute with his wife and also attached a slew of pictures from his travels.

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Artest comments how:

"I am doing many positive things this summer. ... Me, Maurice Evans, Theo Ratliff and Etan Thomas are holding HIV babies and walking around in the slums where kids have no running water or electricity and no shoes on their feet, feeding rice and beans to kids."

Artest goes on to mention that he's planning on buying a house in Kenya so he can "travel back in the summers and help out in the slums."

This guy is a beast. Not only is he an accomplished basketball player, a recording artist and one of the chief engineers behind the Malice at the Palace, but he is classy humanitarian. I applaud Artest's actions this summer and I hope to see him back in form with the Sacramento Kings next season. Other athletes should take a page out of Artest's book and do something positive with their time and money, especially baseball players. Those assholes get paid WAY too much money.

3 comments:

Joey said...

Baseball players do get paid too much. Artest is one of the NBA's best and I don't see or hear of Tim Duncan or David Stern's golden children doing deeds like this. Artest will be back with a vengeance next season.

Matthew Hudson said...

Artest beat his wife. He's better than the media makes him, but he's no angel

Joey said...

A guy that punched his wife in the face does have problems, but he isn't the scum that David Stern and the media paint him as.Well put, matt.