When the incident with Marcus Smart occurred on Saturday night one person people were quick to compare him to was Metta World Peace. Back then known as Ron Artest, he was involved in an incident that would come to be known as “Malice at the Palace”.
The altercation was during the Indiana Pacers game against the Detroit Pistons. A fight broke out amongst the players. After it was broken up, a drink was thrown from the stands at Artest as he was laying down on the scorers table. Artest then entered the crowd and a massive fight broke out between the players and fans.
http://youtu.be/ZI6OkXntGLI
Clearly this was way worse than what occurred with Smart but still World Peace wanted to lend some advice. Reporters caught up with him before the Knicks game against the Thunder on Sunday afternoon.
via NewsOK:
Q: Just because they give their money, does that give a fan the right to scream something?
A: If a fan screams something at me, I don’t know what that person has been through, you know. He could have or she could have grown up rough or maybe in a single family household. I don’t know what would make somebody scream negative things at somebody, maybe they’re just having fun. In a pro game, I’ve learned to accept it because they pay to watch us play and hey, I appreciate it. Then I go home and I finish watching Breaking Bad. It’s that simple for me. I’m actually on House of Cards now. I just finished Breaking Bad. I wish there was a Season 6 actually, because Breaking Bad was amazing. Have you seen it?
Q: If you could talk to Marcus, what advice would you give?
A: I don’t know how old he is, but I know at 19 years old when I came out of St. Johns, I was fresh out the hood, fresh out of Queensbridge. So my mentality was still struggle, defensive and things like that. So I wasn’t really conscious. But I’m 34 years old now. He’s a young kid. I wish I would have listened when I was a kid, to my elders or to people who had my best interest at heart. And then I wish I would have been more conscious at my age. Those are two things that if you were to reach out to a kid like Marcus, a talented kid, a future leader in the community, you would tell him those things.
Q: What was the lesson you learned from that incident?
A: Those incidents, you can’t really learn much from things that are out of your control, but you can become more conscious. You become wiser as you get older. Even John, the guy that threw the beer at me in Detroit, he actually apologized to me. We actually talked. He said, “I was dumb for doing that, sorry,” and he lost all his money, so we’re actually cool. I didn’t hold no grudges for him.
Q: Would you respond differently if it happened today?
A: (Joking) If you threw a beer at me, I probably would put you in a chokehold right now. And then we would go get some ice cream later, but I would probably tell you how much of an (expletive) you were.
– Shaina Auxilly (@Shay_Marie)
