NBA Insider with Ken Berger

By Ken Berger

The connection on his iPhone from Kenya wasn't great, but Ron Artest was so talkative when we spoke Sunday night that we need to test Newsday.com's bandwidth to get it all to you.

Tuesday's newspaper story is a little bit of everything - the news about his suspension, his thoughts about possibly getting traded, his impressions of the Knicks, Zach Randolph, David Lee, and Isiah Thomas, the sense of loyalty he feels toward the Sacramento Kings, and some of the highlights of his trip to Africa with the NBA Players Association to feed 1 million impoverished people.

There's also Artest's personal account of his trip on Newsday.com, and some photos he emailed.

Now, since I've been pushing for the Knicks to try to trade for Artest, it makes sense to me that you'd want to know everything else the Queensbridge native and former St. John's star said that was basketball related. Thanks to technology, here are his comments on a variety of topics I thought you would find interesting:

• His seven-game suspension for pleading no-contest to a domestic violence charge: "I want to apologize to my family for putting myself in the situation to get suspended. I want to apologize to the NBA, the Sacramento Kings, the whole New York City for supporting me so much, and for being in the paper for something negative. I definitely want to apologize to my supporters, too, because I'm not trying to be in the public for anything negative. That's not what I'm trying to do anymore, but unfortunately things happen."

• His public image: "I want kids to really see the goodness in me, not just the bad. There's been enough bad. So I want people to really respect that, and when they do write things, just keep that in mind. I'm not perfect. I might say things and do things, but at the same time, I'm not trying to be some bad dude."

• Whether he could handle playing in New York, where he grew up and starred for St. John's: "I go home a lot. I've never been in any violent trouble, ever. My family basically did everything in the projects that you could do, and I've never adjusted to that negative lifestyle. People see me in New York and I'll be in ghettos, the projects, doing good things for the kids. And you've never seen me getting caught smoking marijuana, DUI, any gun charges. I'm totally capable of playing in any major city - L.A., Miami, Houston, New York City - and at the same time I'm happy to be a Sacramento King. But I'm totally capable of handling anything that comes my way as far as the pressures. I'm not afraid of big media markets. That's why I stayed home at St. John's, because I wasn't afraid of the big media market."

• Whether he still wants to be a Knick, the team he wanted to draft him out of St. John's: "It's not something that really comes across my mind right now at this point. … All the people in New York give me a confidence that no one else could give me because of all the negativity that's been publicized. It's not even the sponsors or the corporate, it's the people that want me to come back."

• His place among the top players in the league: "Every time we play against Kobe, they're putting me on him. When I'm on the offensive end, they put their best defender on me. They're going to put the Kobes on me. Sometimes LeBron will guard me; he's one of the few guys. I'll guard Rip Hamilton, but he won't guard me. So from that point, I'm on the level of any one of the top players in the league."

• His loyalty to the Kings: "The Maloofs, Mama [Colleen] Maloof, she's been a beautiful lady, a beautiful friend to me. All the Maloofs have been good people to me. So that's what the people of New York City don't really see. They only see a player. They see an opportunity for a trade. But it's important that I tell them more so they really see what has to go into all of this."

• His relationship with Kings G.M. Geoff Petrie: "When I talked to Geoff, I talked to him as a friend because he's been a friend to me. But I understand that if Michael Jordan could be run out of Chicago, Ron Artest could be traded from Sacramento. … I understand I could be traded, so it won't make me upset if I'm traded. I won't be mad at Geoff. He'll always be a good friend."

• What would make him demand a trade: "When you're a competitor and you've got to play against a team, you don't think about going to that team. I want to play against San Antonio. I don't want to join forces with them. I want to play against all these teams with the team I've got and I want to win a championship. And that's how I feel. My only thing is, I want people to feel like that around me. If people don't feel like that around me, that we're going to go into this game and win a championship, that's the only thing that makes me upset. That's the only thing that can make me not want to be with a team.

• Whether his teammates in Sacramento believe they are championship contenders: "Well, you know, training camp hasn't even started yet. So you'll pick everybody's brain when you get started. That's a question that I asked last year, and everybody wasn't on board and ready to go try to win this championship, and I was pretty upset about that - that everybody was not like, 'We're actually going to win a championship.' That's how I need to feel. But this is a new season and hopefully people will feel that way."

• What kind of coach he wants to play for: "Being the franchise player is being one of the top players, and I try to give feedback. And if people aren't on board, you just tell your coach, 'Hey, we've got people not on board. I don't think people believe that we can win a championship.' At that point, I think it's up to the coach to instill that in the players. That's something that Isiah is very capable of doing. I think Reggie Theus did it back in college. It's something that would get me frustrated, but it's something that could be challenging. And that's my challenge. And that's a challenge that I'm not afraid to step up to."

• Playing for a team that already has a franchise player: "That's sort of the way it was in Indiana with me and Jermaine [O'Neal]. I didn't have to carry the whole load. We had Jermaine and Steve Jackson and everybody pretty much carried the load. We had Reggie Miller to hit the big threes, and I could pretty much wander around and do my thing off the ball. And it worked for me, too. I had my best season under a situation like that."

• Isiah Thomas: "Isiah's my family. I had my best team season under Rick Carlisle. But after Isiah left, I was pretty upset about that. I wanted to play for Isiah because he brought me in there. I had great times under Rick Carlisle, but I spoke to Isiah after he left Indiana and we talk quite often about things, about non-basketball things. I have a really good relationship with Isiah. I don't have any problems. On the court, Isiah's a monster when he's coaching. He's really intense and he got on my ass quite a few times, but I respect that. I don't mind somebody pushing me to make me better. I don't mind that at all."