No Malice: My Life in Basketball or: How a Kid from Queensbridge Survived the Streets, the Brawls, and Himself to Become an NBA Champion
272
No Malice: My Life in Basketball or: How a Kid from Queensbridge Survived the Streets, the Brawls, and Himself to Become an NBA Champion
272eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633198456 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 21 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Bridge
I grew up in the Queensbridge Housing Projects in Long Island City. If you've ever driven over the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan, you can see those grayish-brown buildings shaped like two Ys connecting at the base. It's the largest housing project in North America. Twenty-nine apartment buildings with 96 units in each spread out over six blocks. I'm told there are more than 7,000 people living in more than 3,000 apartments and that first number is still growing. When I was a kid in the 1980s and '90s, the neighborhood was strictly black and Puerto Rican, but now it's more ethnically diverse.
The projects gave families an opportunity to survive, and for that it was a good thing, but it was also a breeding ground for drugs and violence. In 1986 there were more murders committed in Queensbridge than in any other New York City housing project. That's not a place you want to call home. Today I think of Queensbridge more as a place for shelter, but growing up as kids we didn't know any better. It never felt like we had to get out of there. The drugs and the violence were just a part of everyday life. We didn't fully understand the repercussions of selling drugs because that's just the way things were. That was normal.
Black people who grew up in more fortunate circumstances are quick to judge those who grew up in impoverished areas. Those are the people who say, "Metta is crazy." But I bet if those same people grew up in the environment I did, they would end up the exact same way I did. For all the good and the bad, I am who I am today because of what I experienced on those six blocks in Queensbridge.
My dad was the original Ronald Artest. He was born in Brooklyn but did most of his growing up in Philadelphia. He played a little ball in high school and then joined the Navy. He bounced around before returning to New York in 1977. He married my mom, Sarah, and on November 13, 1979, they gave birth to me — Ronald Artest Jr. Dad got a job at a hospital serving food and my mom worked as a bank teller. There wasn't a lot of money to go around, but we figured it out. We always found a way to make it work. We had tough times as a family, but we also had a lot of fun.
I have a big family. I've got 10 brothers and sisters. I've got 40 nieces and nephews, and five great-nieces and nephews. I'm only 38 years old as I'm writing this. That right there tells you I'm from the hood. Sometimes we had 15 people living in our first apartment on 10th Street. My mom had three daughters before she even met my dad: Shalice, Shaundlyn, and Latoya. When they got older, they had kids who also lived with us.
My older sisters looked out for me, and we rode the bus to school together when I was young, which I thought was the coolest thing. I was closest to Shaundlyn. She took care of me. She also had the best room. My room was a mess, but her room was always clean. She had a bunch of CDs I could listen to and she had an air conditioner. She always let me sleep on her bed. That became my getaway.
I shared a room with my four brothers. That's probably why it was always a mess. Daniel and Isaiah are my two younger brothers and they have the same parents as me. Wally and Khalik are actually my cousins, but I call them my brothers. They're my aunt's kids on my father's side. Wally is three years older than me and came to live with us when I was 10, because my aunt was an unfit mother and got sent to the psych ward. Khalik is younger, and my parents took him in right after he was born.
With so many people living in the house there was always something going on. There was always a lot of music being played. My parents listened to R&B. My mom used to always play her records on Sunday. Her "Sunday Classics," that's what she called them. She'd play music by Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, and Anita Baker. It was all peaceful and relaxing — a far cry from the type of music that was coming out of the neighborhood.
When I was young I was a Michael Jackson fan. I wanted to dance like Michael. I had no idea that the richest legacy in hip-hop was all around me. In the 1980s and '90s we had MC Shan, Marley Marl, and Mobb Deep coming up in the area, but I didn't even know who those guys were. Tragedy dated one of my sisters, but I didn't know he was a rapper. Hostile and Screwball hung around with another one of my sisters, but I didn't know they were rappers. Capone from C-N-N was my third cousin. Every weekend I was at Nature's house. I didn't know the dude rapped because I was never into street shit like that. We just used to go to his house to watch WrestleMania and get us some Hostess Cakes. Nature's mom always had the goodies.
It wasn't until I turned 15 that I was like, "Oh shit, Mobb Deep is from Queensbridge." That same year Nas' Illmatic dropped. I had never seen Nas in the hood, but he grew up on 12th Street right around the corner from me, and now people were saying he was one of the best rappers of our time. That was amazing to me.
Even when I learned more about it, I never wanted to rap myself. I was never interested. I'd write rhymes but I did it for fun. My dad would help me out. It was funny to hear him because he sounded like a preacher. Now, whenever I bring people back to the neighborhood to show them around, I always refer to where we are by saying, "This is Nas' block," or "This is Mobb Deep's block."
The streets were known for being tough, but it was also a war zone inside my house. My parents fought constantly. I didn't even know what they were fighting about most of the time, but they were both doing stupid shit. Mom was flipping on Dad and Dad was flipping on Mom. Whenever things got physical, I got nervous. One time it got so bad that I thought one of them was going to get really hurt. Shalice must have seen the look in my eye because she took me by the arm and led me into her room. I sat on her bed and she handed me a magazine. There was a crash from the other room. The wall shook and we heard glass break, but Shalice remained calm and turned up the music to drown out the chaos. She'd act like nothing was wrong.
"Tell me what you did today," she'd say.
We'd sit there and talk. Even then I was aware of what she was doing, but it made me feel better anyway. My sisters always made me and my brothers feel safe. When my parents were done fighting, we'd go make sure Mom was straight. We were always close as a family, but that was just another way us kids all stuck together.
Between my parents fighting and all the violence out in the street, I grew up living in survival mode. I was a pretty good kid and I didn't get into any real trouble, but I couldn't seem to avoid fights. It's not like I went out looking for them — I swear that I never initiated a single confrontation. I only fought when I had to. That said, I did have a temper. I think I got that from my dad. His mom was also an angry person so maybe it was in our blood.
The earliest fight I can remember being in was back when I was in second grade. This kid tried to cut in front of me in the lunch line. I didn't know who he was. He was smaller than me, but he was acting like I wasn't even there. That got me mad. The line was long. I had been waiting for a while.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
At first he laughed and then he said, "This is my spot now." He turned around and ignored me.
"You better not think you're gonna cut in front of me."
"What are you gonna do?"
As soon as he said that, I snapped. My hands went right for his throat. He clawed back. I hit him. The teachers jumped in quick to break us apart. It was back to the principal's office for me.
I wasn't only getting in trouble at school. Even when I was with my own family, I sometimes found myself in survival mode. My family used to have cookouts in the park. Everyone would show up. We'd grill, eat out, and just spend the day there. These were usually laid-back gatherings, but one time I got into an argument with my sister over something stupid. Out of nowhere, my cousin Adam jumped in and started needling me.
"Why are you acting like a bitch?" he said.
"I'm not acting like a bitch, mind your business." I tried to leave, but he kept following me.
"That's why you're walking away. Because you're a little bitch."
I knew he was joking, that he was trying to get under my skin, but it was working.
"I'm not playing with you, Adam."
"Then stop acting like a little bitch."
He wouldn't let up and eventually I'd had enough. I turned and got right in his face. I could tell that he didn't think I was going to do anything, which got me even more upset, so I just hit him. For a couple seconds he might have been out cold because he dropped and just laid there. Oh shit! Even I was surprised. The family stood around Adam as he picked himself up off the ground, but my dad pulled me off to the side to calm me down.
"He's your cousin. Don't be doing that," he said.
"But he wouldn't leave me alone."
"You can't hit him."
"Then what? Just let him keep talking to me?"
"The next time you get upset or feel angry, step aside and do some pushups. I bet you can't even do 20."
I didn't respond. I just dropped and knocked out 40 pushups right there.
My father understood what I was going through. I saw what happened when he got angry and I knew he was on medication. There was a history of mental illness in my family. Everybody has problems and people deal with those problems differently. It's hard to get support from your family or the people in your community when they're dealing with their own problems. There were not many well-balanced people in the environment I grew up in, so most of the time I had to figure things out on my own.
But nobody can do it all alone. Luckily there was this free counseling service in our neighborhood. It's not there anymore, but there used to be an apartment on the 40-side of 10th Street that was strictly used for therapy. It was great because anybody in the neighborhood could go there for help. By the time I was 13 I had gotten into so many fights that my mom made me go, and I'm glad she did. That was the first time I was told that I might have an anxiety disorder. The psychologist I met with was a really good guy and he helped me get control of my temper. He used to take me to the park to play football after we talked and then he'd buy me some food.
I may not have gone looking for trouble, but there were plenty of times when I crossed the line. I could recognize that. Once, when I was outside on the block, these guys started bothering me. I ran inside and got a pair of scissors. I was ready to cut somebody. Thankfully nothing bad happened, but a situation like that made me realize that I had to get control of my emotions. When I found myself wanting to hurt somebody, I had to make sure that I wasn't going to do anything that would land me in jail. You could never back down in my neighborhood, but as I got older I started to learn when not to fight. Things can go wrong very quick, and that's when people get stabbed and shot.
There was one situation that could have gotten real bad. It happened when I started sixth grade at IS-8. I had been at the school a week and didn't know anybody. One day I was running late to class. I walked into the stairwell when these five guys from this Latino gang cornered me. They must have seen me in the hall and followed me. One kid got right up in my face.
I knew who these guys were. They were a little older than me and had some beef with my cousin Wally. I guess they couldn't get to him so they tried to punk me instead.
Class had already started. Nobody else was around. I was stuck in this stairwell and outnumbered. There was no way I'd be able to take them all, but I wasn't just going to stand there and let them kick my ass either. I knew that if I got in a couple shots I might be able to get away.
Smack! I hit the kid in front of me right in the side of his head with everything I had. I didn't even wait to see what happened to him. I took one swing each at the two kids closest to me and just took off running out of the stairwell. I made it to the hallway and rounded the corner but saw they weren't following me. I got away, but I still had to wait and hide out until 5:00 pm before I could go home.
I knew that wouldn't be the end of it. I could have easily gone and got my friends. We could have found some kids who really didn't have anything to live for, but that would mean getting involved in the gang life. I was surrounded by those people and saw them every day, but that lifestyle was something I was never into. You have to protect yourself, but I didn't want to get into trouble and I definitely did not want to go to jail. After I got jumped, the best thing for me to do was to get out of that school. I told my mom what happened and she helped me transfer to 204, which was right down the block and a school where I knew more people.
I never talked to Wally about that incident, and I never crossed paths with those guys again, but that was just another example of what my life was like. It wasn't out of the ordinary and I didn't worry about it. All I cared about was surviving.
CHAPTER 2Streetball
"Ron, have you ever considered organized sports?"
That's what the principal asked me when I found myself back in his office after another fight. This time he wasn't mad. It felt like he was legitimately trying to help me.
"That might be a good outlet for your aggression," he said.
I wasn't into sports before that. Instead, me and my friends were playing tag, double dutch, skully, catch-one-catch-all, and stickball. We were active and we were outside all day long, but I didn't play basketball until I was eight years old. In my neighborhood, that's pretty late. A lot of kids started playing as soon as they could walk.
The first time I picked up a ball and actually played was with Wally. We went out to the courts on 12th Street and it was immediately clear that I had no idea what I was doing. I kept trying to put the ball through my legs, but I couldn't do it. I wasn't good, but it was fun. Playing that one time made me want to learn and get better.
Pretty soon I wanted to play all the sports. My dad was a Golden Gloves boxer, but he didn't want us to get hit, so he never allowed us in the ring. I saw some of his fights and I think it took its toll on him, so I appreciate him looking out for us. I tried playing football once in middle school, but I hurt my knee when I got tackled in tryouts. I couldn't play basketball for two weeks, so I said "fuck that shit" and quit the team.
I started to get serious about the game when I was about 10. I'd play a lot with my older cousin Butchy, who lived with my grandmother down in Far Rockaway. He'd help me work on my game, but the person who put in the most time with me was my dad. He'd come home from work and take me to the courts on 12th Street, which became my second home. We'd be out there all day long. Sometimes there would be pickup games, but toward the end of the night we'd have the court all to ourselves. We'd play full-court one-on-one until 3:00 in the morning. And he wouldn't just play; he'd play hard. He'd foul me and try to scare me. My dad was like 6'2" and 250 pounds, and he wouldn't go easy on me. When I hit the ground hard, I'd have to pick myself up.
"Finish the play. Don't worry about the foul. There ain't no whistles out here," he'd tell me.
That's how I first learned to play hard and that's what made me tough. I was also having a lot of fun.
Once I started playing basketball I never stopped. I played all day, every day. It's all I wanted to do. I never found a reason not to play and I tried to play everywhere I could. I also never let the weather get between me and basketball. I liked to go out to the courts on 12th Street when it rained really hard because it felt like the court was mine. When it snowed, me and my friend Cedric would shovel off the blacktop and break up the ice. Every once in a while, we'd strip down to our shorts and go play in the snow for 30 cents a game. Once or twice a winter, we'd try to play with no shoes on to see who was tougher and could last longer.
We didn't have any middle school or elementary school teams. What we had was the community. My first official "coach" in Queensbridge was Bob Welch from the Jacob Riis Center. We used to call him "Bob Riis," and he was the one who first taught me how to shoot free throws. He was a white guy with blond hair who became the unofficial commissioner of basketball in the Queensbridge projects.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew that Bob was the glue. We trusted him, and he was one of the guys who really cared about us. Any time something racial went down in the neighborhood, it always made us think of Bob before we said or did anything out of line. People in the neighborhood had the utmost respect for Bob. He was basically untouchable. He helped make the Riis Center the Mecca of basketball in Queens.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "No Malice: My Life in Basketball"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Metta World Peace and Ryan Dempsey.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Phil Jackson 9
Introduction 13
Queensbridge
Chapter 1 The Bridge 19
Chapter 2 Streetball 27
Chapter 3 Life on Fire 37
Chapter 4 Just Say No 41
Chapter 5 A Way Out 47
Chapter 6 Made in Manhattan 53
Chapter 7 Ballers 65
Chapter 8 The Kings of New York 75
Chapter 9 Ron Artest Goes to College 83
Chicago
Chapter 10 The Rookie 101
Chapter 11 Hennessy Has No Place in the Locker Room 113
Indiana
Chapter 12 Naptown 123
Chapter 13 From Pretenders to Contenders 131
Chapter 14 The Malice at the Palace 143
Sacramento and Houston
Chapter 15 Sactown 161
Chapter 16 Breaking the Cycle 171
Chapter 17 In Houston, We Had a Problem 181
Los Angeles
Chapter 18 I Love L.A.! 197
Chapter 19 Bigger Than Basketball 215
Chapter 20 Give Peace a Chance 223
New York
Chapter 21 Empire State of Mind 239
Worldwide World Peace
Chapter 22 The Panda's Friend Goes to China 247
Chapter 23 I Love L.A.! Vol. 2 255
Chapter 24 Positivity Not Negativity 265