Despite earlier reports that the Lakers’ Ron Artest will join a Finland professional basketball team later this summer, Artest’s agent, David Bauman told the Los Angeles Times that no such thing was true.
“I’m his agent and nothing has come across my desk,” said Bauman. “Although Ron has asked me to explore all options over in Europe in the event of a prolonged lockout, there are several legal and business considerations that have to be addressed. The biggest one involves insurance. None of those have been addressed and I don’t even know who this guy claiming to have an agreement is. Final thing is what if the league has a lockout for say two weeks and then end up getting a deal. It becomes a moot point.
However untrue the reports of Artest heading to Finland may be, they come as no surprise for the enigmatic 31-year old small forward, who recently made tabloid headlines when it became public that Artest had filed papers to legally change his name to “Metta World Peace.”
