Things Not Very Peaceful in LA
Added on Feb 15, 2012 by Scott in
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The artist formerly known as Ron Artest isn’t living up to his new name these days. Metta World Peace and first-year Lakers coach Mike Brown haven’t been seeing eye to eye, so they held a summit of sorts after yesterday’s practice to mitigate their differences. Metta is none too pleased with Brown’s constant lineup tinkering and wants to know where he fits in.
World Peace even attacked Brown’s coaching resume, which doesn’t sound very harmonious.
“Right now, coach is a stats guy,” World Peace was quoted as saying. “His background is video coordinator or whatever. So he’s all stats. But Ron Artest is all feel.”
Did he refer to himself in the third person using his old name? That might be a first. Anyway, Metta didn’t start the first 20 games of the season and is currently playing like garbage, averaging only 4.7 points, 2.6 boards and shooting a pathetic 19% from beyond the arc.
Brown didn’t back down in responding to Metta’s comments and even offered a little advice to his petulant small forward.
“If I were him, I’d be frustrated. I talked to him about it,” Brown said. “I said, ‘Metta, I don’t take anything personally. I’m OK with it. Just be careful what you say to the media in that regard. But if I was a stats guy, Metta, you wouldn’t be playing at all. Because look at your stats offensively, and then Synergy says you’re the 192nd best defensive player in the league.’ “
Ouch. Funny how those pesky stats can make someone look like an ass. To be fair, World Peace isn’t oblivious to the fact that changes must be made when a new coaching regime takes over.
“When you have new players and new coaches (this season) and it took a long time to build some consistency. That affected not just my game; it affected a couple people early on. Now you see guys starting to hit shots and you can see a slight change.”
The Lakers are off to a less than stellar start at 17-12 and trail the Clippers (?) by 1½ games in the Pacific Division.
Source: ESPN.com
