Free Republic

That's the approach the player formerly known as Ron Artest is taking as he prepares to play his first season in China. China Daily reported that Artest, known most recently as Metta World Peace, has decided to change his name to "Panda Friend."

If you see Lakers basketball forward Ron Artest on the street, you can officially call him "Metta World Peace." The NBA star's publicist says the name change takes effect Friday. It's apparently something the basketball star has wanted to do for a while. "Ron Artest, (World Peace) has contemplated the name change for years and always knew that he wanted his last name to be World Peace but it took many years of research and soul searching to find a first name that was both personally meaningful and inspirational," his publicist told CNN. A judge recently put the name change...

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest wants to change his name to Metta World Peace. Artest's attorney filed a petition in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday seeking the change. The 31-year-old NBA star was born Ronald William Artest Jr. In the court documents, Artest cites personal reasons for wanting to make the change. An Aug. 26 court date was set to consider the petition. The petition filing was first reported by celebrity website TMZ. Artest's career has been filled with ups and downs. He helped the Lakers win the NBA championship a year ago and in...

Samuel L. Jackson is stirring up as much courtside trouble as his new character, "Coach Carter." The Oscar-nominee says racism contributed to Indiana Pacer Ron Artest's season-long NBA suspension, following the infamous player-fan brawl of Nov. 19. "I knew immediately that he was going to be blamed for it," Jackson told us. "It all becomes a very strange kind of race issue. As black players were going into the stands, it looked like it was black players fighting white fans. But, there were some black fans fighting, too … and you also won't hear a lot about the white kids...

Five Pacers among 10 charged from NBA brawl 20 minutes ago AUBURN HILLS, United States (AFP) - Prosecutors charged five National Basketball Association players and five spectators who fought in a November 19 brawl with assault and battery counts. Indiana Pacers players Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Anthony Johnson and David Harrison each received one misdemeanor assault and battery count for their actions. Teammate Jermaine O'Neal received two assault and battery charges for hitting both an usher and a spectator who had come onto the floor during the melee in the final seconds of the NBA game against Detroit. Each misdemeanor...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. By now, we have all seen the footage from the near-riot that broke out at a recent game between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in the NBA. There have been plenty of attempts to figure out what conclusions, if any, we should draw from what happened. Some sportswriters, like Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, insist that it was an isolated incident. Others, like Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, see what happened as a consequence of cultural trends within the NBA, such as younger, less-mature...

Mixed in with all the beatdowns and battles that dominated sports this past week was this little action by the NFL - Indianapolis Colts tight ends Marcus Pollard and Dallas Clark were each fined $5,000 for the "jump-and-bump" routine the two had taken to performing after scoring a touchdown.

Fan at center of Pistons-Pacers brawl calls Artest a `thug' 11/23/2004, 2:43 p.m. ET The Associated Press WEST BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The Detroit fan who authorities say threw a cup that hit Indiana forward Ron Artest and started a brawl during a Pistons-Pacers game described the player Tuesday as a "thug." John Green, a 39-year-old contractor from the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield Township, made the comments during an appearance with his lawyer, Shawn Smith, on ABC's "Good Morning America." "Ron Artest went through the stadium punching people the whole night," Green said. "He was being a thug."...

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com Firm stand on fans gone wild Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004 Ron Artest got his, and good. Now he loses a season out of his basketball prime, and his earning prime, because he couldn't control himself. He crossed the line and went into the stands and paid the highest price anyone in his sport has ever paid. Artest was helpless in that moment against his own temper and impulses and perhaps even his own demons. "They said everything to Jackie Robinson in 1947," Doc Rivers was saying yesterday. "If he didn't go into the stands,...

Players insist line is crossed two ways BY MICHAEL OBERNAUER DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004 One day after David Stern smacked nine players with a total of 142 games worth of suspensions, New York's pro athletes echoed the NBA commissioner's call for accountability. But many of them weren't discussing the players, they were talking about the fans. "Because they pay a lot of money to sit there, it shouldn't give them the right to say whatever," Knicks guard Allan Houston said. "The reality is that we're all human. Nobody can say, 'I wouldn't have done that,' because...

If nobody had thrown anything at Ron Artest while he was sunning himself on the scorer's table Friday night, nothing would have happened. The NBA would have yawned and fined Artest for slugging Ben Wallace needlessly at the end of an Indiana victory and maybe fined and suspended Wallace for shoving Artest practically out to the sideline. Just another day in the thug life. The Pistons and Pacers know no other way to play each other, and neither did the old Pistons and Bulls, and neither did the old Heat and Knicks. It was much worse in the '50s, when...

Today scored a major exclusive this morning with the first TV interview of NBA player Ron Artest, who as FReepers who've spent the last week on the other side of the moon might not know, has been suspended for the remainder of the season for charging into the stands and attacking fans. This is a case in which mere words, even a verbatim transcript, would be insufficient to fully convey the full flavor of the interview. In a follow-up interview, NBA Players' Union head Billy Hunter acknowledged to Katie that Artest was "not very articulate." But that does not begin...

BRAWL IN THE FAMILY by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher November 23, 2004 What in the world has become of sports these days? I'm not just talking about the athletes who have long been out of control, but now that venomous contagion has spread into the ranks of the paid attendance as well. Take for example the latest example of both athletes and fans behaving very badly, no; make that atrociously or rather, criminally.We begin with the granddaddy of all fights, the basketbrawl showdown (yes, you read correctly) between the Indiana Pacers and the defending NBA champion Detroit Pistons where...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ron Artest was suspended for the rest of the season Sunday as the NBA came down hard on three members of the Indiana Pacers for fighting with fans when a melee broke out at the end of a game against the Detroit Pistons. Overall, nine players from the teams were banned for more than 140 games, including some of the harshest penalties the league ever issued. Artest is the first player to be suspended for nearly an entire season for a fight during a game. ``The message the league sent was so powerful to players that...

ESPN NEWS Station - Artest out for season.

Why is everything Ron Artest's fault? Why? Do hard fouls happen in games? Yup. I don't like to give up free baskets myself in basketball, and I consider myself to be a very sportsmanlike player. Would I have fouled THAT hard? Nope. Does it happen all the time in the NBA, NCAA, high school, middle school, even Y ball? Yup. And it could have ended there. Had Big Ben Wallace not decided to put his big mitt in another player's face. Hey, I don't like being fouled hard either. And I get hard fouls all the time, as I love...

Posted on Sat, Nov. 20, 2004Ron Artest has no business in the NBABy MICHAEL ROSENBERGDetroit Free PressAUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Go away, Ron Artest. Go far, far away. Last week, you were an amusing circus act. For much of Friday night, you were the best basketball player in the building. And then you were something beyond Idiot and several miles past Nuts. And now you need to disappear - not for a week, not for a month, and not for any amount of time that can be defined in conventional basketball terms. We're not measuring this in games missed. It...

A new lowOnly solution for NBA is to get rid of the guy who's the problemPosted: Saturday November 20, 2004 2:33AM; Updated: Saturday November 20, 2004 8:23PM *snip* But once again, Ron Artest interjected himself into a play that had no bearing on the outcome of the game, fouling Wallace from behind as he went up for the lay-up. I listened to ESPN analysts last night talk about how Artest's foul wasn't of the flagrant variety, but that's hardly the point. At no time during that possession did Artest make any kind of play on the basketball. What he did...

NBA indefinitely suspends Artest, O'Neal, Jackson, Wallace November 20, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) -- The NBA suspended Ron Artest, Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson of Indiana and Ben Wallace of Detroit on Saturday for taking part in one of the ugliest brawls in U.S. sports history. The suspensions were indefinite, and the league was still investigating Friday night's melee, which commissioner David Stern called ``shocking, repulsive and inexcusable -- a humiliation for everyone associated with the NBA.'' The league issued a statement saying it was reviewing rules and security procedures ``so that fans can continue to attend our games unthreatened...

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Indiana's Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson charged into the stands and fought with fans in the final minute of their game against the Detroit Pistons (news) on Friday night, forcing an early end to the Pacers' 97-82 win. The game was stopped with 45.9 seconds remaining when a pushing and shoving between the teams spilled into the stands after fans began throwing things at the players near the scorer's table. "It's the ugliest thing I've seen as a coach or player," Pistons coach Larry Brown said. After several minutes of players fighting with fans in the...