Report: Artest In Talks With 'Dancing With The Stars'
CBSsports
Matt Moore
TMZ reports that Ron Artestis in discussions to join the cast of popular television gameshow "Dancing with the Stars" as a contestant:
Nothing's official yet -- but sources tell us, both Artest and "Dancing" producers have been in touch to hash out a possible deal ... and Ron's pretty excited about the prospect.But here's the catch -- "Dancing" won't end 'til November and basketball season typically starts in October ... which means if the lockout ends early, Ron could be S.O.L.
via Ron Artest -- In Talks with 'Dancing w/ the Stars' | TMZ.com.
This is a terrible idea for any NBA player, plain and simple.
While I'm sure being paired with a professional dancer and starring alongside a virtual of who's who of has-beens is an alluring prospect, here's the reality. The dances the players would be participating in have one primary injury likelihood: turned ankles. Depending on the severity, those take months to get right. Players play through them all the time, but it affects their production and limits them for months. Plus, they're painful as all get-out. Artest, who's as tough as they come, doesn't want to come into a shortened season, his first with new head coach Mike Brown, dealing with an ankle-turn. It will just slow him down and since he had issues last year with floor time, complicating that issue seems like an unnecessary risk.
Which means he'll probably do this. It seems unlikely that the show's producers would take this big a risk on Artest, considering as much as everyone's in doomsday mode about the lockout lasting the entire season (and it's very possible), we simply don't know. Things could get resolved next week and it would only register mild shock. There's no set timeline for how this will go. And trying to get Ron Artest to commit to a rehearsal schedule, even a flexible one, while playing an NBA season?
Yeah, good luck with that.
