Ron Artest
Metta World Peace
The Panda’s Friend…is that it now? Lets just go with “The Artist Formerly Known As Artest.”
Either way, Metta World Peace, or TAFKA, arrived in China today, and unsurprisingly, this had Chinese basketball fans excited. While the NBA continues to become a global brand, there is nowhere that it grows faster than China. They’re excited at any chance to get to watch an NBA player no matter what his crazy name is. Also, the guy loves pandas which, I guess China thinks that’s cool too?
A video of TAFKA’s arrival in China was posted to his Instagram, “realtalkwithmwp.” The video begins with TAFKA being surrounded by Chinese fans as he tries to give a little bit of face time to all of them. He’s posing for pictures, talking to them, and looks generally happy to be around all of them.
This is really cool — even a guy like TAFKA, who’s seen better days at this point of his career, gets these fans giddy. The highlight of their day is going to be taking pictures with the great TAFKA. It really shows how popular the NBA is over there, and even though we all hear about it, a video is sometimes necessary to prove it to us. And TAFKA appears to be just as excited to be there. There is no requirement by players to embrace fans. He very easily could have arrived in China, done a couple waves, and been on his merry way. But he chose to stick around, take pictures, and talk a little bit with these fans. I have a feeling moments like this are only going to help his popularity in China, rise.