Stephen Jackson on Metta World Peace: 'If he was in his right mind, he could’ve won Defensive Player of the Year and MVP multiple times'

Stephen Jackson: That’s why I feel like that was the best team I’ve ever been on. From one through eight, we could’ve played with anybody, any team, on any night. And Ron Artest? Man, if he was in his right mind, he could’ve won Defensive Player of the Year and MVP multiple times. No one could stop him. No threes, no guards in the league could guard Ron. That’s heavy talk, I know, but Ron—without a cloud over him, without any distractions—was unstoppable. At 6’7”, 260 pounds, with the handle he had? He was unbelievable. Ron could lock anybody up and take pride in it. But you never knew which Ron was going to show up.

Source: YouTube

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Metta World Peace: So, I told my agent, “I want to go to Greece. I really don’t want to play with anyone else.” My agent, David B., and I discussed it, and I said, “I want to go to Europe. There’s nobody I want to play with.” I got a call from a few players—some really good players—but I said no. It’s not because I didn’t like them. I just respected them enough to want to compete against them. I wanted to test where I was at. When I tried to sign with the team in Greece, they said, “No way Ron Artest wants to come to Greece.” I was like, “Why didn’t you even give me an interview?” I took it a certain way. Then, I tried to go to Angola. I wanted to play in Africa—in the motherland. The people in Angola were like, “No way.” They weren’t taking my call. I was like, “How do you not take my call? I just averaged 25 points against the Lakers.” It was unbelievable. -via YouTube / December 11, 2024

Metta World Peace: I told myself, "I’m going to be the hardest worker here." Yao was a hard worker—he didn’t miss a single suicide. We’d try to get him to take a break, but he wouldn’t. That’s just the kind of player he was. But then there was Kobe. I’m watching him, and I’m like, “Damn, there’s really nothing I can do.” He was in the gym at 6 a.m. Me? I was just coming home drunk, coming back from the club, but Kobe? He’s already in the gym. I work hard, though, you know? I’d sweat the alcohol out there. I swear to God. But one day, I decided I had to see it for myself. I got to the gym at nine—he was already gone. Then I got there at eight one day—he was just leaving. Finally, one day, I got there at six. I did my own thing, but I saw it. I was like, “Wow, this guy’s different. He’s a different breed. A different dude, man.” He played through a broken foot. Like, you know, he’s not going to feel the pain. Gary Vitti said Kobe had the highest threshold for pain he’d ever seen. For sure. There were times I’d think, “Wow, I’ve got a high threshold for pain, too.” But when Gary told me that about Kobe, I was like, “Really?” He said, “B, I’ve never seen anybody like him.” -via YouTube / December 11, 2024

Metta World Peace: "When the Rockets said they wouldn’t bring me back, I was surprised. I wanted to stay. Then my agent said the Lakers wanted to meet. Dr. Buss said, ‘We can’t pay you what you’re worth, but we’d love to have you.’ I didn’t care about the money. I just thought about Kobe, Phil, and Lamar—like this was my chance. The Bulls were my favorite team growing up, but now I was joining the Lakers, a team I admired. I felt like I had sabotaged my career, and now the basketball gods were giving me one more shot. -via YouTube / December 9, 2024

Stephen Jackson: When the protests started, Minnesota went crazy. They burned police stations. The city rolled. It felt like something out of a movie. During all this, I was getting death threats, people hacking my phone, my DMs full of hate. I lost 20 pounds. I wasn’t eating or sleeping. I was doing four or five interviews a day. But I stood tall. I had no blueprint, but I knew I had to stand up for George and for justice. This was the biggest civil rights movement in history—18 countries and 50 states protested at the same time. It had never been done before. Did we get change? Some. Is it enough? No. But I’m proud of what I did. I helped his family, his daughter, and I stood for something bigger than myself." -via YouTube / January 10, 2025

Stephen Jackson: "I didn’t have a better career than Ray Allen, but if you look at the games I played against a lot of these people, I balled out against them. We might not have won the game, but in my matchups with a lot of these people who y’all look up to, I bust their ass a lot of nights and locked them up. I didn’t have better careers than them, but I was a competitor. I wasn’t a better shooter than Ray, but I was a better post player, a better passer, a better defender—better at a lot of things on the court. People don’t understand that. As a fan, they just think it’s hating. But I did it in real time." -via YouTube / November 18, 2024

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Stephen Jackson on Metta World Peace: 'If he was in his right mind, he could’ve won Defensive Player of the Year and MVP multiple times'