The Beauty of NBA Confession

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Ron Artest Admits to Drinking During Halftime of Games

Confession has certain connotations. I won’t go into what they are. Needless to say, Ron Artest unloaded one for the annals just yesterday admitting that during the first three years of his NBA career he drank heavily at halftime. This is a Ron Artest who has struggled personally throughout his run of stardom as one of the NBA elite. Suspension for fighting, medication to regulate behavior, impulsive activity off the court during the season all line the resume of a man who is as synonymous with turmoil as one pro jock can be.

But his latest confession, while seeming to top even the previous infractions indicates, to me, a cry for help. And how could it not be? He’s from the Queensbridge projects in Queens New York. I’ve never been to New York but I used to live close enough to a housing project to know it’s not a place where young men grow up slowly. They grow up fast. We all did. Ron is one of many NBA stars from Andre Miller to Baron Davis to Lamar Odom who got manhood training on the job. Murder, poverty and desperation are those hallmark themes that regular people grow weary of because after all American problems are nothing like those of the Third World. To those I say, “Have you been to a housing project…to live?”

When a man confesses to something as grievous as drinking during athletic competition at the highest level, know that a distress signal has been sounded on behalf of an entire demographic. The question now is whether or not “first responders” in the form of journalists and NBA executives will rush to his aid. Is Ron a commodity worth saving or a lability that requires scrapping? He’s neither solely but rather a man who grew up a little faster than he should’ve and skipped some developmental steps. I’m not even sure what “help” looks like for #37 but I’m pretty sure that it DOES NOT resemble derision by an ignorant public. While alarming, we need such honesty to reveal just how drastic the transition is from street rat to prince. It’s a shame that his ability to play hoop is the only reason he’s the topic of a blog post.