Ron Artest
During Artest’s stint with the NBA, which saw him play on six different teams, he was involved in several issues on the court. Of course, he was also an award-winning player, taking home the 2004 NBA award for Defensive Player of the Year, along with an All-Star title and All-NBA honors. But we’re here because of the way Artest acted during some of his appearances.
Most notably, there was the Pacers-Pistons brawl, which has also been dubbed, Malice at the Palace. During the incident, Artest fouled Pistons center Ben Wallace, which spurred a massive fight on the court between players. The entire stadium was basically in chaos. Nine players were suspended, including Artest, who missed out on a record 86 games – the longest suspension in the history of the league.
J.R. Smith
J.R. Smith is another case of one of those egotistical pro athletes that let their attitude create negative energy and environments around them for the smallest of reasons. And sometimes, it seemed like he had no reason. During the 2017-2018 season, Smith was suspended for tossing a bowl of food at Damon Jones, the assistant coach at the time.
And most recently, he’s been in some hot water with the league over a tattoo he got that went against rules and regulations. The tat is on his leg and shows the logo of the brand Supreme. The NBA’s rules don’t allow for any corporate logos to be promoted in that way, and they both fined him and told him he needs to figure out a way to cover it up.
Antoine Walker
Does it make it better or worse for Antoine Walker to be making this list for something other than attitude issues? Most players so far have appeared due to arguments or fighting on or off the court, but not Walker. He definitely wasn’t the worst by any means, and his three-point shot was actually pretty good. So good that he’d do his famous shimmy-dance after making one.
The problem was, he shot for too many of them and only averaged making them about 34% of the time. You can imagine that this may lead to some stress between teammates. Walker wasn’t without his legal issues off the court, either. He’s been arrested several times, including multiple times throughout 2009 and 2010 for writing bad checks to cover gambling debts.
Ricky Davis
Well, people make mistakes, and professional basketball players are still just people, both on and off the court. Right? Though, would you count intentionally missing a shot as a mistake, or as a royal screw-up? In 2003, Davis made his most memorable move in the league (and not in a good way) when he failed a triple-double and got knocked down by an angry DeShawn Stevenson.
After the incident, many called for the Cavaliers to suspend him for his actions. Instead, they fined him (without disclosing exactly how much,) for his unsportsmanlike conduct. Ten years later, people were still writing about it. It’s made several lists of the worst moves in NBA history.
Smush Parker
During the course of Smush Parker’s five-year career in the NBA, he made a few friends – but he also made himself some enemies. Kobe called Bryant out, saying that, “he’s the worst,” and that he should’ve never been in the NBA. But why the beef? While they played together for the Lakers, Bryant would ignore Kobe intentionally, and not pass him the ball when he clearly should have. Which is something that he admitted to during the infamous fight?
He was also reportedly “the worst” with people off of the court, too. Back in 2007, a female valet attendant where he apparently grabbed her arm when she couldn’t immediately find his ticket. He was deactivated from a game against the Bobcats following the report.