Never have and never will. His short stint with Houston was fun and memorable but at the end of the day, I am glad he is gone.
Don't care for him much. He was entertaining. His game had a lot of holes. Again, very entertaining... but I don't miss him on the team.
I understand the trade, it was a good one, very low risk for taking a shot, but danged, I would rather still have Donte Greene. DD
It has gotten away from me. Does anyone remember (with knowledge of hindsight) who we gave up to get Artest. Didn't it all start with us drafting Batum. And I think we gave up a first rounder, who did that turn into? I think we got a 'free' second rounder and/or Joey dorsey, but as he is out the league now, that didn't turn out to be a significant advantage. So now that we know the draft picks, who did we give up for the Artest 'rental' and was that worth it?
The guy helps you win. He helped get us to the second round and helped LA win a ring. He played the most minutes in game 7 of this year's Finals. He practically played the whole game. He's good.
I was more than happy the Rockets traded for Artest. Ron brought the team a level of toughness I thought we needed. Yes he helped get us out of the first round and push the lakers to 7 games, but that's not good enough. I think Ron needs to be surrounded by veteran players, to kind of help keep him in check (as much as that's possible) and be the third or fourth option to really be effective. There is no way he would have been happy here last year with not winning as much. I think he may have hurt the team more than helped by trying to do too much. I absolutely would not have wanted him on his current contract, here for five more years probably would have been a disaster. All this said I was happy to have him while he was here, but I'm glad he's gone. Now of course he's a laker, so I obviously root against Ron Ron in the worst way.
No I would say that we made it to the 2nd round that yr DESPITE Artest and his antics. I still view his awful performance as the reason that we lost against the lakers that year
No, too "thuggy." Added some much needed toughness, but feel in love with the jumper, not a good idea.
If we didn't had Ron Artest we couldn't have won a series in the Playoffs and we could have beat the Lakers if he didn't loss his mind against KOBE BRYANT!! but now he betrayed us... Spoiler <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vu1zMV5j0fo&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vu1zMV5j0fo&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
I thought he was a knucklehead when he came to Houston. Before he left, I realized he had grown up. He wasn't the best player on the Rockets, and he isn't someone you can build a team around, but he has a competitive fire that I haven't seen since..............well.............maybe Mario Elie.
He was alright. Can't really say I feel for him one way or the other, though, no homo. It just irks me how good we could've been if Mac didn't bail on his career.
Love or hate him, you can't deny artest was a big reason why we advanced to the second round. We were always a pretty good defensive team before artest, but I have never seen a team play so hard, physical, tough and have a never give up attitude against the blazers and lakers in the playeoffs. It was because of Ron Artest that we had that pitbull mentality on the court. The other team may win the game, but we're still gonna kick your ass, thats the mentality ron brought to our team.
Yes. If McGrady stayed healthy, the trade would have given Houston a legitimate shot at the finals for at least two seasons. Definitely worth losing Bobby Jackson's expiring contract and two late first round picks (Greene and Casspi) over. That said, I'm not convinced anymore that a core of McGrady/Artest/Yao would have been able to dethrone the Lakers and win it all. But it would've been mighty, mighty close.
He was flawed and not a superstar, but Yao was supposed to be healthy and do that for us. He has said that he probably could have won a championship at Houston. Results don't lie. When he joined our team you could tell he brought the leadership and mental toughness T mac never could provide. The guy was crazy and arrogant, and believed the rockets could beat anyone. We finally broke the seal and reached the second round, the first round curse was lifted. We hadn't gotten past the first round in 6 tries in 12 years (!) (if you don't appreciate that, remember the Francis/Mobley years after being spoiled by years of having Hakeem.) We took the lakers (The toughest competition in the NBA that year) to seven games without Yao. LA fans were really sweating and starting to get worried of Houston. Many people commentators and fans agreed the Battier/Artest combination did the best job of the playoffs that year defensively against kobe bryant. The guy won a ring the next year, and had the game of his career in game 7 of the NBA finals. I still like the trade because we got younger with ariza. The guy is only 25 and an excellent complementary player. He was never meant to be the star, but like battier he will do all the little things to help a team win.
Another Queensbridge guy beside Lamar Liked the guy but probably over the hill first option, very good role player though who only bows to the best, .... Kobe.... awful bricklayer
If Ron had played as Rocket the way he did against us that game when the Kings nearly ended our winning streak at 22. That was an incredible game and Ron was like Kobe Bryant on steroids, could not be stopped and was going strong to the rim when he could. OMG Steven Novak continued the winning streak. BTW, wtf happened to Novak?
