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Ron Artest was not the first NBA star to change his name. Several of its predecessors, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, World B. Free, and Bison Dele did so. But as of Monday, he may be the first NBA player to change his name twice.
Artest originally changed his name to Metta World Peace during the 2011 offseason. The reasoning he gave Bill Plaschke of The Los Angeles Times at the time was brilliant: “I changed my name because I got tired of Ron Artest, he’s a [expletive]”World Peace said.” And when fans get mad at me, they can’t say, ‘I hate World Peace.’ “Metta is a Buddhist term meaning” loving-kindness, “and it will keep it as his first name. It is his last name that has changed, as revealed in “Inside the Green Room with Danny Green”.
“My name is now ‘Metta [inaudible] Ford-Artest, “he said, as transcribed by Silver Screen and Roll.” In fact, I took my wife’s last one and added it to mine. “The former World Peace is married to Maya Ford. She did not take the name of his first wife Kimsha Hatfield.
Artest has not played in the NBA since the 2016-17 season. He played abroad in China in 2014, and although rumors were running that he had changed his name to “Panda Friend” at the time, this is the first official change since he assumed “Metta World Peace” as his legal name in 2011.
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