It was a late friday night as I was sitting in my living room watching the Boston Celtics play the Washington Wizards. Simultaneously, I was flipping through the local Celtics broadcast channel and ESPN. On ESPN was a documentary about the infamous “Malice at the Palace” back in 2004 between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers. It was said to be the worst night in NBA history. As I flipped back the channel to the Celtics game, the two teams were in a bit of a scuffle. It seemed harmless compared to what I was watching in the other channel. I always wondered what it was like to be inside a body of a NBA player in one of those situations. Are they mad because they want to help their teammates or are they just mad? As I went to bed, there were trending videos on youtube that caught my attention. They were all about some brawl videos occurring in the NBA. While I was in the middle of a video I ended up drifting off.

The next morning I wake up in a five-star hotel in one of the suites of the hotel in Auburn Hills, Michigan. There was a massive wall of windows from floor to ceiling, overlooking the city. The room was just plain massive. It was probably bigger than most apartments! I get out of bed and I’m sore from the game before. I am confused on where I am and even better, who I am. Not under my control, I reach for the telephone aside my bed and call for room service. I know myself pretty well by now, I am not the type of person to call for room service. As the hotel employee enters the room with my breakfast consisting of four eggs over easy, two pieces of white toast, bacon and a large class of pulp-free orange juice. I know the employees name, “Thank you Julie.”

“You’re welcome Mr. Artest.”

This can’t be. Am I really living in the body of Ron Artest? After the Julile leaves the room, I spring up out of bed and haul over to the mirror. The dream is real. I am inside the body of Ron Artest.

I finish up my breakfast as I am still in complete utter disbelief that I am in the body of Ron Artest. I call up my teammate and best friend, Reggie Miller.

“I can’t believe it!”

“What happened?”

“I can’t believe that I’m Ron Artest!”

“You ok Ron?”

Lunch passes by, Reggie and I go out to get some food. We stop by a local Applebee’s for a pre-game meal.

“I think we got this game easy. The Pistons are not nearly as good as they were last year and we only go stronger. Home court is nothing when it comes to out talents.”

The time has come. It is 7:00. I am sitting in the locker room where next to me is a rising star in Jermaine O’Neal. Jermaine is a tall man standing at 6’11 and weighing in around two hundred fifty pounds. One of the biggest players in the NBA at the time.

“You ready to dominate tonight?”

Ron and I just sit in silence. That was his daily routine before every game. He was thinking about everything he was going to do tonight. And it was working of him. He was averaging twenty-five points per game, six rebounds per game and three assists per game. The first time in his career he was averaging MVP numbers. He won Defensive Player of the Year award last year but that was just the beginning of a great career.  He is only twenty-four years old at the time. Around 7:45, Ron runs out onto the court in my warm-up gear to get some pre-game shots in. I was feeling healthy and great. No sore muscles and no exhaustion. My first couple shots were going in with nothing but net. I was feeling like never before. Plus, Ron has been in this league for four years now. There was not a single nervous part in his body.

As I realized throughout the game, Ron was a very aggressive player and played until the end. That would eventually come back to bite Ron in the butt. With around a little less than a minute to go in the game, Ron fouled Pistons senter Ben Wallace. This foul came when the Pacers were already up by fifteen points and the outcome of the game was almost certain. Wallace took this a little to personal and shoved me twenty feet back from where I was standing. I can feel the anger in Ron’s stomach. From the past, he has had many altercations because of his temper issues. Although Wallace keeps charging at him, Ron is able to keep his cool. He and I both know that he will get another suspension if this spirals out of control. To avoid this altercation, I lay on top of the scorer’s table and just calm myself. I can feel the anger releasing from his body. I’m taking deep breaths with Reggie surrounding me in his spiffy coal colored suit and red tie on, hand in a cast and his hand on my chest.

All is well, they are dealing with the temper of Wallace. All of the sudden, I feel a plastic cup hit me and I get covered in some type of alcohol. I can smell the liqour. As soon as it hits, I can feel the anger building back up in Ron. In Ron’s eyes, he reacts out of self-defense because he feels the situation as an attack. I pray for him as he starts to run into the stands at the person who through the drink. Except it was the wrong fan he attacked. The fan he attacked was named Michael Ryan. The real fan who through it was by the name of John Green, who was struggling with a alcohol issue at the time. They were out of time to explain themselves. Ron went into the stands and landed one of the biggest haymakers I have ever seen in my life, and I’ve watched some boxing matches. From behind, John Green starts to pull me off of the other fan and punches me. In reaction and self defense, Ron lays another haymaker on him.

Finally, some of Ron’s teammates including Reggie were able to rip him out of the stands and back onto the basketball court. His jersey all ripped into pieces and hanging by a thread. Zoned out, Ron doesn’t notice the cop run over to him and spray him in the eyes. I was able to notice that Reggie put his arm up in front of my eyes.

“We have him, go deal with the fans running out onto the court!” Reggie shouts.

“No, I need to spray him!”

“No, we have him!”

When Reggie said this, I came to realize that not all of the arena was against me. That is sure what it felt like. That is part of the reason he lost it on everybody. He knew that he had his teammates to support him in whatever he did because they were his family.

The fight was finally over. They calmed everyone down including the two main attractions, Ron and Ben Wallace. With the game being called with 45.9 seconds left on the clock, the game was over. As I walked back to the locker room with some security guards, there wasn’t one angle in the arena where I wasn’t getting bottles and trash thrown at me. I could still feel that anger in Ron’s body as he exited but I felt remorse. Was that the man Ron was. Did he not feel little to no remorse?

After the game, I sat in the locker room just staring at the wall and asked my teammate, “Are we gonna get in trouble?’

“Big time.”

So I hopped in the shower and I blacked out. Next thing I knew, I woke up the next morning with my laptop in my bed still playing videos. They were random ones now but I’m back in the my own body. It was one heck of a journey through the day of Ron Artest during “The Malice at the Palace.”

“Sam, get up! The bus gets here in 10 minutes!” my mother yells.