Former Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta Sandiford-Artest is hoping to become a head coach in the league at some point in the future.
Sandiford-Artest, who began his NBA career as Ron Artest, spoke with SNY.tv on a variety of topics, including his hope of a coaching job.
“I’m definitely trying to be a head coach one day in the NBA,” Sandiford-Artest said. “I’m not really forcing it. I do have a couple people reaching out to different teams. But one day, I would love to be a head coach in the NBA.”
Having gone through multiple name changes over the past two decades, Sandiford-Artest is now simply focused on coaching a team in the league.
During the one-time champion’s NBA career, he played with six different teams and ended up closing out his playing days in the league with the second of two stints with the Lakers.
From 2009 to 2013, Sandiford-Artest largely served as a starter in the Lakers’ lineup. That includes the 2009-10 season in which he played a part in the team’s second consecutive NBA title.
During the 2014-15 campaign, the former-first round pick played overseas in China and Italy before returning to play two more seasons with the Lakers.
While unspoken publicly among teams, one of the likely reasons why Sandiford-Artest’s chances of becoming an NBA head coach remain uncertain is due to his role in one of the NBA’s most notorious incidents.
In November 2004, the one-time All-Star was playing for the Indiana Pacers and involved in an ugly brawl with the Detroit Pistons that spilled into the stands.
The actions of Sandiford-Artest quickly led to his suspension for the remainder of the 2004-05 campaign and forever soiled his on-court reputation.
That banishment surely was a spark for the different name changes that he has since undertaken. Whether or not teams are reluctant to hire him out of fear of a similar incident is unknown, but Sandiford-Artest is remaining patient.
