NBA

NBA Player Raffles Off Championship Ring For Mental Health Charity

Wow, he actually did it.

After months of threatening to auction off his first and only NBA championship ring and donate the proceeds to charity, Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest actually did it.

Artest held the raffle over the weekend and raised over $500,000 for at-risk youth. Wow.

I’ll be the first to admit, I was extremely skeptical that this day would ever come. Not that I thought Artest was lying necessarily, but he strikes me as the type of guy who has great intentions but is easily distracted. You know the type: they meet someone in the subway whose blind in one eye or something, are very touched, then talk about about starting a Facebook group for them so they can take acting classes. That is, until they meet someone else on the subway who was no legs, are even more touched, and need to start a Facebook group so the person with no legs can go to music school. It’s an extremely sincere form of ADD.

But Artest followed through. And if you saw his appearance on “PTI” last week, you’d know how serious he is about mental health. Just listen to him talk for about 30 seconds. Have you ever heard Ron Artest sound so lucid?

The ring was won by a father of four from California named Raymond Mikkael, and proceeds from the raffle went to the Xcel University charity, which works with high-risk youth on mental health issues. According to the AP, Artest said he already wrote his first $50,000 check from the proceeds to the charity. Awesome.