Why Ron Artest Can Handle Tough, Playoff Basketball

Ron Artest took a Kobe Bryant elbow to the throat moments after teammate Luis Scola took a fierce shiver from Derek Fisher. Artest reacted rather dramatically, making sure everyone knew what Kobe had done. For his troubles, Ron-Ron got booted. Honestly, it's just as well: at that point, the Lakers were not on a path toward losing.

But Artest spent some time after the game explaining to reporters that he just wants Kobe to play fair, and for the referees to hold Kobe and the Lakers accountable for dirty play. It's not that Ron-Ron can't handle dirty play. Oh, he can handle it. He knows a guy who got killed in a pick-up game.

The unbelievable story is passed on by Houston Chronicle beat writer Jonathan Feigen.

"Uh, wow. I understand it's the playoffs. I remember when I used to play back home in the neighborhood there were always games like that. I remember one time, one of my friends, he was playing basketball and they were winning the game. It was so competitive, they broke off a piece of leg from a table and they threw it and it went right through his heart and he died right on the court.

"So I'm accustomed playing basketball really rough. When I came into the league, I was used to fighting on the court. That's how I grew up playing basketball. It took me a lot of years to back off and understand, that's not what the league is about. Now, I play fair and square and I lose fair and square.

WHAT! One of Ron's childhood friends got killed in a pick-up game by getting speared with a broken table leg? I demand to know more about this. I mean, there are some things you just don't do on the basketball court. Killing someone by throwing a broken table leg through their heart is one of the things. Consider it an unwritten rule.

If Kobe hears this story and doesn't get a little bit nervous, he's not human.

UPDATE: From the Associated Press in April 1991, via Sam Amick's Twitter ...

A 19-year-old basketball player from Queens was fatally stabbed with a broken-off table leg today after a fight broke out during a basketball tournament, the police said.

The player, Lloyd Newton, was stabbed in the back with a leg from the scorer's table at the championship game of a Y.M.C.A.-sponsored tournament at the Niagara Falls Boys and Girls Club, the police in Niagara Falls said. "An argument ensued about the score," Capt. Louis Curcione said, adding that one of the teams "thought they were getting gypped. A fight broke out between the players and about 40 fans in the stands," he said. "In the course of the fight, one person was stabbed in the back."

Also, here's video of Ron telling his story, via BDL.