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"I'm too hood for that"

By leftcoast, Section NBA
Posted on Tue Feb 14 2006 at 12:03 PM EST
More on: (all tags)

So I woke up this morning, and the first thing I did, just like every other weekday, is turn on SportsCenter.  Whose face do I see?...Ron-Ron's.  It was "Sunday Conversation" time, by far some of the best sports interviews on television.  Artest answered questions on what he felt like during the months he was supposed to be traded, and how the Maloofs made him feel in his debut in Sacramento, etc.  But an even better question came up about Ron Artest's image.  He replied that he really didn't care about changing his image. To quote him, "I don't want to do no Coca-Cola commercial."

He was doing so good, it really seemed like he moved on from what happened in Detroit and that this Ron Artest was just going to play basketball, and try to stay off the radar.  My favorite comment of the interview was that he was "too hood for that" when he was explaining why he wouldn't clean up his act.  That got me to thinking what is the big deal with street cred in the NBA?  

I'm all for representing where you grew up and having a serious sense of pride for your hometown and all it represents, the good and the bad.  But for Ron Artest simply just to shrug off the idea of maybe changing his image from a simple hot tempered hoodlum to a hard-working all-star basektball player absolutely escapes me.  But he's too hood for that.  He is simply a hood rat.  If I was a teenage boy regardless of race or ethnicity, that interview would have told me that being a head case and a thug is perfectly acceptable.  That I could be uncontrollable and a poor sport and still get paid millions of dollars to do it.  I would know that the rules don't apply to me, and that no matter what I do I always have a reason for the way I act. Then I don't have to take responsibility for my actions.  I honestly think that Ron Artest is the most ignorant person in the NBA.  I really wish that Ben Wallace would have been given the chance to show Ron Artest what he thinks of him on that night.  Sometimes all troublemakers need is a really good beating.

Don't get me wrong, Ron Artest, when he wants to be, is the best two-way player in the game.  There is no denying that.  Nobody works like he does and gets the same results.  He is a 20-10-5 guy every night and he can guard the positions 1-4 and 5's on some nights.  But for the sake of impressionable kids, show some common sense if you have any.  There are kids out there who see your game and want to emmulate you and guess what, they will emmulate your attitude too.  Be who you want to be Ron, don't change the player you are or the person you are.  But like so many other players in the league who have had hard upbringings, try to make yourself a better person than the ones you grew up around.  

It's true that you are a product of your environment.  But I am sure that Ron Artest and others like him looked at their lives and said 'I need to do better for myself and for my family.'  That is why they play the game, amongst other reasons.  But he needs to realize that even though he doesn't want to be a role model or a nice guy, or whatever, that there are responsibilities to being a professional athlete.  

In closing this is the way you answer the question that was asked to you:

"What hapenned in Detroit was a mistake, I admit it.  There were a lot of people who were wrong and I was one of them.  As far as my image goes, I don't see myself as a LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, or Kevin Garnett type.  Me, I'm a hard worker who gives it his all everynight and tries to display the grit and determination of where I grew up.  I'm not a role model, but as for my image goes I just want to be known as a tough basketball player who left it all out on the court."

As the saying goes though, you can take the player out of the hood, but not the hood out of the player.