Photo courtesy of therapup.net
Artest told Yahoo! Sports he plans to wear No. 70 next season, but the NBA has rules that prevent players from switching their uniform number from year to year. The deadline for a player to change his number is in early March to have it go into effect for the next season and once a number is changed, it has to be worn for five seasons with that team before a player is allowed to change it (unless he is traded to a new team or leaves as a free agent).
Artest wore No. 37 after signing on as a free agent with the Lakers in 2009-10 and did switch to No. 15 last season. It’s not clear what he had to do to accomplish that.
The uniform rule does not come with any stipulations for a name change, however.
If there is a request or circumstance that calls for a number change within the five-year period is approved, it may come with a cost of some kind, according to a league source.
via Los Angeles Lakers’ Ron Artest’s name now officially Metta World Peace – ESPN Los Angeles.
Look, I can’t say I care too much that Ron Artest is changing his name to Metta World Peace. As amusing as it’ll be to see “World Peace†on the back of a dude’s jersey during actual NBA games, I probably won’t start calling him that. Unlike Chad Johnson, who introduced the “Ocho Cinco†nickname informally a couple of years before making it official, Artest is expecting the entire sports world to start calling him by a new, esoteric name over a decade into a career that hasn’t exactly been low-profile.
No, what interested me most from Dave McMenamin’s report on Artest’s name change was the explanation of the process for jersey-number changes, something I’ve always wondered about and been fascinated by. Why does the NBA make players wear the same number for five years? Is it just so they don’t have to print new jerseys to sell? Major League Baseball doesn’t seem to have any rules about this whatsoever. When the Giants acquired Carlos Beltran at this year’s trading deadline, manager Bruce Bochy switched his number from 15 to 16 so that his new power hitter could keep the number he had worn for six years with the Mets. They made the decision at Beltran’s introductory press conference, and both his and Bochy’s new uniforms were ready for the game that night. Considering the NBA’s willingness to bend this rule for its stars (more on LeBron James and Mario Chalmers in a minute), its very existence seems somewhat archaic and unnecessary.
This got me thinking about other noteworthy number changes in recent NBA history, and the reasoning behind them.
Amar’e Stoudemire, Phoenix Suns (switched from #32 to #1 in 2006):
Photo courtesy of krissthesexyatheist.blogspot.com.
From what I can gather, this switch was a combination of Stoudemire’s desire for a fresh start after missing virtually the entire 2005-06 season with two knee surgeries, and his well-known tendency to proclaim his own greatness. Either way, it sets him apart from other big men in today’s league, most of whom wear numbers in the 30-50 range.
Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers (switched from #8 to #24 in 2006):
Photo courtesy of therapup.net.
The most famous number change of the last decade. We still haven’t gotten a definitive explanation of the reasoning behind it. Kobe’s story is that he wore 24 in high school but it wasn’t available when he was drafted. Plenty of people (including Kanye West) have speculated that he chose 24 because it was one above Michael Jordan’s 23. Cynics believe he changed his number to boost jersey sales. He certainly has done that—his jersey was the best-selling one in the NBA for several years before being unseated by LeBron James this past season. Kobe’s switch also had the unintended effect of giving his old #8 jersey hoopster eligibility. And perhaps most significantly of all, he may become the first player in NBA history to have two different numbers retired by the same team in his honor. The Lakers haven’t issued #8 since Kobe dropped it, and since he wore it for three straight titles, it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone else wearing it in the future.
Martell Webster, Portland Trail Blazers (switched from #8 to #23 in 2009):
Marcus Camby, Portland Trail Blazers (switched from #21 to #23 in 2010):
Photo courtesy of bleacherreport.com.
Webster wore 23 in high school, but when he was drafted by the Blazers in 2005, it was still being worn by Darius Miles. Miles, of course, had his career derailed by knee injuries beginning in 2006, and due to an absurdly complicated situation with his status on the Blazers’ payroll, it wasn’t until the 2009-10 season that his number was available. Camby was a trade-deadline acquisition that season, and due to Webster’s presence, he was forced to wear a number other than 23 for the first time since he was a Toronto Raptor. Webster was traded the following offseason, however, and Camby promptly took over his number. It’s not a particularly interesting backstory, but I choose to bring this one up because…
Mario Chalmers, Miami Heat (switched from #6 to #15 in 2010):
Photo courtesy of zimbio.com.
Around this time, during the 2009-10 season, it came out that LeBron James, coming up on free agency, had filed paperwork with the league to change his number from 23 (which he wore in honor of Michael Jordan) to 6 (his Olympic number). This began a public campaign on his part to get that number retired throughout the NBA in honor of MJ. The movement never really got off the ground, but it was a nice PR move for LeBron, back when the words “nice PR move for LeBron†existed as a phrase. However, when he left Cleveland for Miami in July of 2010, his plan hit a snag because Heat guard Mario Chalmers already wore #6. Some kind of agreement was obviously worked out quickly, because when James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh were introduced at the now-infamous “welcome party†a few days after The Decision, he was indeed rocking #6. Hopefully, Chalmers was able to milk a new Maybach out of the deal or something.
Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards (switched from #0 to #9 in 2010):
Photo courtesy of baysports9.com.
Shortly after LeBron began the “retire #23†campaign, the artist formerly known as Agent Zero also filed paperwork to change his number to 6. Given that Arenas was serving a full-season suspension at the time for the infamous guns-in-the-locker-room incident, these reports were brushed off as nothing more than someone with a pretty dismal public image trying desperately to capitalize on the goodwill LeBron had amassed from his advocacy for Jordan’s number to be retired. (Again, the hilarity of someone trying to copy LeBron James for PR reasons cannot be stressed enough in a post-Decision world.) Arenas did change his number for the following season, but he went with 9, not 6. Gil told Kyle Weidie of the Wizards blog Truth About It that he chose 9 because it represents rebirth. Makes sense for a guy trying to rehabilitate his image after being suspended for an entire season for keeping guns in his locker.
And since most of these seem, directly or indirectly, to have something to do with Michael Jordan, what the hell…
Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls (switched from #45 to #23 in 1995):
When MJ returned to the Bulls from his baseball sabbatical for the end of the 1995 season, his iconic #23 was unavailable…because it had already been retired in his honor. He wore his baseball number, 45, for the rest of that season, which just looked weird. Fortunately, the Bulls pulled 23 down from the rafters during the playoffs (and paid big to do so), and Jordan led Chicago to three more titles and cemented his legacy as the greatest player in NBA history. His final shot to win game 6 of the 1998 Finals is one of the iconic moments in the history of professional sports. Try to imagine him wearing #45 whenever that game or any others from the second half of his career are rerun on ESPN Classic. It wouldn’t be right.
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