Everyone has a Ron Artest story. I've got dozens.

Sometimes they're playful, like when Artest decided to make a statement on behalf of teammate and friend Jamal Crawford, who was feuding with former Bulls coach Tim Floyd because he wasn't playing. Crawford always wore a headband, so Artest did also in solidarity. So Floyd benched Artest.

Sometimes they're not so playful, like the halftime of a game in Artest's second full season with the Bulls. Artest was traded midway through his third season in Chicago, and neither of the first two was very pleasant. The Bulls won 17 games his first season and 15 his second. That would drive any player crazy. It was a shorter trip for Artest.

	Ron Artest, right, wants to stop his man at all times. Just ask Kevin Garnett, left.

So the Bulls are being blown out again, and Artest wasn't a player who took it as easily as many of his teammates. It's actually the trait that makes Artest the player he is, but also drives him to some of his actions that frighten teammates.

They were frightened that halftime as Artest stood about eight feet from the wall of the visitors' locker room. There was a bench for the players to sit on and a wall behind. Artest stood erect, his face a mask of anger with the piercing, hateful look of someone seeking revenge. It became sort of a dodge ball game, though Artest's teammates were afraid to move. Artest wound up like Bob Gibson and hurled the ball full speed against the wall, about four inches over the heads of his teammates. Again and again, catching the ball, whipping it back. Thump, thump, thump. No one said anything. It went on throughout the entire halftime.

The Bulls called them "Artest moments."

They usually happened on the basketball court. It's like a switch is flipped when the game ends. Off the court, Artest has the sweet disposition of an innocent child. His smile melts you, and if his grammar isn't always appropriate, he is easily forgiven. I remember the Bulls once without a point guard and Artest asked to play there. Trying to learn the position in that game, he ended up shooting 0-for-17. He couldn't have been gentler after the game, apologizing and saying he'd tried the best he could.

Mostly, though, there have been rages. He tried to go into to the stands once to get a heckling fan in Indiana when he was with the Bulls. And he tried it even after he was traded to the Pacers in Indianapolis when he misunderstood what a fan had said. Once in a practice with the Bulls, he became so frustrated he tried to pick up a weight machine that weighed a thousand pounds. And he actually moved it. The story they tell at the gym where Michael Jordan suffered broken ribs last year with Artest guarding him was that Jordan was taunting Artest about having so little money compared to him. Artest is quite generous, probably too much so for his own good.

He supports a legion of family and friends, and in his rookie year with the Bulls he even tried to get a job on Sundays at the Best Buy electronics store near his home. The Bulls didn't practice on Sundays, NBC wasn't scheduling them anymore for obvious reasons and Artest was buying all this electronic equipment for his friends -- so he figured he'd get the employee discount. The Bulls put a stop to that.

But Artest was a little sensitive about his financial condition, and it was too much to listen to Jordan. The story goes that he just slammed Jordan down. Artest, a rock of a man with a narrow waist and the most compact 250 pounds you can imagine, is no one to mess with. It's why Jordan since then always praised Artest's play. Jordan is not a fool.

The Bulls were no fools to trade Artest. Great defense is great -- when you're scoring more than 80 points. And they weren't. It was painful to watch the Bulls try to score or even take a big shot. It wasn't Artest's game, and not really that of Brad Miller or Ron Mercer. So the Bulls traded the bunch for Jalen Rose. The Bulls can score now, even if they still don't win much.

And the Pacers do a lot of both, thanks in great part to an attitude that Artest has added to the team. When you play the Indiana Pacers now, be ready to be attacked.

	“	Defensively, he's off the charts. He would have played for (the Bad Boys). I don't know where he would have played and how, but we would have found time to play him. ”
		— Isiah Thomas on Ron Artest

"Defensively, he's off the charts," said Pacers coach Isiah Thomas of Artest. "He would have played for us (the Detroit Pistons' notorious Bad Boys of the 1980s). I don't know where he would have played and how, but we would have found time to play him."

Artest is a great defender because he doesn't understand the NBA. He doesn't understand the games at the beginning of the season don't mean as much as the ones at the end. He doesn't understand the plays in the first quarter don't mean as much as the plays in the fourth. He doesn't understand about letting a player dribble into the frontcourt to set up a play, about conserving energy or accepting that the other team has to score.

Artest wants to stop every shot, every dribble. He gets up on his man and doesn't believe he should be able to dribble, let alone shoot. Often, he loses control, screaming at teammates in the huddle, tearing out telephones (as he did just last week when the Pacers lost to the Pistons) or being prepared to tackle a fan or perhaps Mike Tyson if he's in the room. No one is saying Artest has a Mensa application to complete.

And it's not like the trade with the Bulls made the Pacers. They were a pretty talented team. But it gave Indiana the pieces it was missing.

The Pacers got a center in Miller, a real NBA center, though my sanity would have been challenged saying that even a year ago. Miller can play inside and out, hitting a shot away from the basket to draw his man out and somehow getting a shot off inside. It's not clear to anyone how he does it, but he does. More importantly, though, Miller enabled the Pacers to move prodigy Jermaine O'Neal to his natural power forward position.

The Pacers also found the ideal role for Mercer, and, surprisingly, he accepted it. Mercer is a terrific talent, but he had been mostly miscast with several teams as a go-to scorer and team leader. He doesn't have the personality for the demanding leadership role and doesn't have quite the game to match Tracy McGrady or Kobe Bryant. Who does? Yet, Mercer was pushed into that role as a high pick and well-paid free agent. Now, particularly when Reggie Miller returns from an ankle injury, it's easy for Mercer to accept scoring behind a future Hall of Famer. It gave the Pacers offensive depth, which is rare in this watered-down NBA. Here's a guy who can average 20 points per game not starting. Most teams don't have a second or third main guy who can do that.

And then there's Artest. Got a hot scorer, a big-time star? Artest wants to shut him down. And up. Not that he always will or can. But he'll take the assignment with glee, and he often does a heck of a job. That he's a little -- well, how shall we say? -- different just means that opponents don't like to mess with him. After all, they make a lot of money. And it is just a game. But not to Artest.

Because that next play is the most important one of his life and if he can't stop it well, errrghhh, arrrggghhh, aaawwwww ... he just might hit someone. Making for yet another Ron Artest story.

Sam Smith, who covers the NBA for the Chicago Tribune, writes a weekly column for ESPN.com.