Unusual pitch by Ron Artest to Kobe Bryant immediately after 2008 NBA Finals
Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) were one of the more amusing real-life buddy cop comedies we’ve ever seen from NBA teammates.
On the one hand, you have Bryant, a cutthroat competitor on the court who couldn’t turn it off when off the court until his final season. On the other hand, there was World Peace, who was being defended by a grizzly bear with quicker hands on the court but more similar to a teddy bear. Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) were one of the more amusing real-life buddy cop comedies we’ve ever seen from NBA teammates.
Ron Artest’s public pronouncements of how much he wants to play for the Lakers were not the first time he told members of the Lakers he wanted to play for them. There was this one time in the shower...
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Kobe said that after the Lakers lost game six of the ’08 NBA Finals in Boston by 39 points, he was alone in the shower, just fuming. He heard somebody walk in and assumed it was one of his teammates, or maybe a staff member. Instead, he looked up, and it was Ron Artest (to this day, Kobe has no idea how Artest got into the locker room).
“I want to come to help you. If I can, I’m going to find a way to come to LA and give you the help you need to win a title.”
With a shower confrontation as the first step toward Artest joining the Lakers, you had to expect things would only get stranger and more entertaining as the relationship blossomed.
Metta would eventually win his only championship with the Lakers immediately after joining the team. Every fan still remembers his remarkable game seven performance vs. — Boston Celtics when he provided a much-needed scoring for the purple and gold squad.
