The Los Angeles Lakers won a championship in 2010 with a great supporting cast around stars Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. Some players worth mentioning are Metta World Peace, Derek Fisher, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum as they all contributed, specifically in a grueling Finals series against longtime rivals Boston Celtics.
World Peace shared some intense battles with Bryant during his time with the Houston Rockets and provided that same toughness when he was traded to L.A. in 2009.
After hitting the biggest shot of his career in Game 7 of the NBA Finals in 2010, with Bryant finding him, World Peace became immortalized for taking out the Celtics in a defensive-minded game.
That was a big turning point in World Peace’s career. He was previously known for the infamous ‘Malice at the Palace,’ in which he jumped into the stands to fight a fan. That gave him a bad reputation for most of his career.
When he won a championship with the Lakers though, the man formerly known as Rob Artest finally felt at peace with himself, which was awesome to see. In fact, that is when he decided to make the name change to World Peace.
In a recent interview on The LADE Show with Lamar Odom, World Peace went into further detail on why he changed his name:
“So I was going through a lot, honestly, and then I also submitted to being a role player, because I knew I was gonna be here for the next couple years and I wasn’t gonna get better when my contract was up. So I submitted to I was just gonna be a role player for the remainder. I thought we would get to the Finals a couple more times, honestly. So that part was cool and I started to become more content and I wanted to just do something else in my life. I felt like the narrative people set, I had to fight against that. So I’m taking on people I don’t know, I can’t see them because behind closed doors, you don’t know what people say. So I was trying to do something else impactful, a little business. So I said I need to move my messaging away and move my own internal self towards my trajectory where I want to go with my life. Not the narrative that people have or why they won’t want me on their television show, you know what I’m saying? ‘Come on my show and act a fool!’ Like, nah. I want to have impact. Where we come from, we got to inspire these people behind us so it was the whole thing like getting off channel one which was entertainment or whatever it is, to let’s call it channel two, which is social impact. Just trying to be there for people because we need it. I didn’t have it at certain points, me and Lamar grew up similar, and that was it. I needed to find some type of calmness because it wasn’t. And then being with Phil, you start meditating and you start doing all this stuff and I was like dang, I was already getting into Buddhism. I was doing therapy that whole time. So when you combine that at, it’s almost like you want to be like Phil. And then you win a championship with being calm, like they say Ron Artest is a gift and a curse, he needs that energy to win, but that energy is getting people in trouble. I don’t want that energy to win. I want to play focused. In that year 2010 with Phil, that had a lot to do with just staying focused on that type of energy. I fell in love with that season, really mostly that. Meditation was incredible.”
It is great for World Peace to open up about this period of his life which carried a tremendous amount of weight transitioning to a new identity. Regardless, he will forever be remembered for helping the Lakers win a championship and hitting one of the biggest shots in franchise history, and he continues to work to this day on maintaining the positive reputation he has built for himself.
Metta World Peace asked for trade prior to winning 2010 championship
However, things did not seem to be perfect for the former champion during his first tenure with the Lakers, as World Peace recently revealed that he asked for a trade before ultimately winning it all in 2010.
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