Ron Artest, also known as Metta World Peace and Metta Sandiford-Artest, is a retired American professional basketball player with a net worth of $30 million, and he has earned $77 million in salary during his NBA career. He won an NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010.
Ron Artest, a former American professional basketball player, has accumulated a net worth of $30 million. Artest is also famously known by his alternative names, Metta World Peace and Metta Sandiford-Artest, and had a successful career playing for six different NBA teams, where he garnered a reputation as a skilled defender. His career was marked by a notable achievement when he won the NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010. However, he was also involved in several controversies, including the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl in 2004, which resulted in him being suspended for 86 games due to his involvement. Ron Artest Jr. was born on November 13, 1979, in the Queensbridge projects, located in Queens, New York, to a family with two younger brothers, Daniel and Isaiah. As a teenager, he developed his basketball skills at La Salle Academy in Manhattan. Artest pursued his higher education and played college basketball for St. John's University's Red Storm from 1997 to 1999, during which he led the team to a 14-4 record in the Big East Conference and made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division 1 Tournament in his final year. The Chicago Bulls selected Artest in the 1999 NBA draft, and he played 175 games for the team over nearly three years, mostly as a starter, averaging 12.5 points per game. In the middle of the 2001-2002 season, he was traded to the Indiana Pacers. Artest's career took him to the Houston Rockets in the summer of 2008, where he helped the team advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in 12 seasons. However, his aggressive behavior led to him being ejected from games on multiple occasions, including an incident where he was ejected after an outburst in response to an offensive foul. Artest found significant success with the Los Angeles Lakers, signing a five-year, $33 million deal with the team in 2009. He made a crucial game-winning shot in Game 5 of the 2010 Western Conference Finals and scored 25 points in Game 6 against the Suns, helping the Lakers reach the NBA Finals for the first time in his career. The Lakers ultimately won the championship, defeating the Celtics four games to three, with Artest scoring 20 points in the final game. Following his time with the Lakers, Artest signed a two-year deal with the New York Knicks in July 2013 but was waived in February 2014. He then went on to play for the Chinese Basketball Association's Sichuan Blue Whales, appearing in 15 games, and later signed with Italy's Pallacanestro Cantù in 2015. Artest returned to the Lakers in September 2015 and made his debut in a 104-98 win over the Brooklyn Nets in November. In April 2017, he contributed to the Lakers' longest winning streak in four years, helping the team secure a 108-96 victory over the Pelicans. Throughout his NBA career, Ron Artest earned a total of $77 million in salary. Beyond his basketball career, Artest has made numerous television appearances, including competing on the 13th season of the reality dance show 'Dancing with the Stars,' serving as a panelist on the Nickelodeon game show 'Figure it Out,' and playing a newscaster on the Comedy Central sketch show 'Key and Peele.' In 2018, he participated in 'Celebrity Big Brother.' Artest began a relationship with Kimsha Hatfield at the age of 15 and had a child, Sadie, in 1997, followed by Ron III and Diamond. The couple married in 2003 but divorced in 2009. Artest also has a son, Jeron, with his former high school girlfriend Jennifer Palma, and is currently married to Maya Sandiford.