Lakers' Artest: 'I Used to Drink at Halftime'

Ron Artest drank cognac during games in his first few NBA seasons with the Chicago Bulls, the volatile forward tells the Sporting News. “I used to drink Hennessy … at halftime,” Artest, now 30 and with the Los Angeles Lakers, says. “I (kept it) in my locker. I’d just walk to the liquor store (near the stadium) and get it.” More nuggets from the conversation:

• On the 2004 brawl in Detroit, the so-called “Malice at the Palace”: “It wasn't my fault. … I don’t see anything I could have done different. The only thing I could have done was have God pause time so I could have said, ‘Oh, look, you’re about to run in some stands, so stop.’”
• On early stints in Chicago and Indiana: “In Chicago, I was a head case. I worked really hard but still had this ghetto thing in me that I could not get out. … I could’ve stayed at Indiana my whole career, but I said I wanted to be traded. I was getting more stable, but I was still unstable and I was a bad teammate. They had to get rid of me.”

(More Ron Artest stories.)