Fansided

Every NBA team’s greatest enforcer of all time

By Luke Anton

LOS ANGELES - 1987: Bill Laimbeer #40 of the Detroit Pistons looks on during a game against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, California in the 1987-1988 NBA season. (Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - 1987: Bill Laimbeer #40 of the Detroit Pistons looks on during a game against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, California in the 1987-1988 NBA season. (Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images /

Indiana Pacers — Ron Artest

Malice at the Palace will forever be the first thing that comes to mind when Ron Artest’s name is brought up. A player so wild that he charged up into the stands to fight someone who threw a beer at him (he ended up punching the wrong guy), igniting the most insane melee and night the NBA has ever seen. That 2004-05 Pacers team was full of brutes — Jermaine O’Neal, Stephen Jackson, Dale Davis, Scot Pollard — but no Pacer brute was as reckless and unpredictable as Ron-Ron.

Hailing from Brooklyn and shouting out QueensBridge after winning the 2010 Finals with the Lakers (and also shouting out his psychiatrist), Artest carried that embodiment with him everywhere he went, especially on the court. At 6-foot-7 and 260 pounds, Artest was an immovable force on defense. He’d rough up opponents the entire game and be completely unfazed by exacting such boisterous physicality all night long. But he could also flip a switch to warrior mode at any given moment. He was an edgy loose cannon who straight up didn’t like people.

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