Oklahoma City Thunder: Metta World Chaos speaks - NewsOK.com (blog)

on May 8, 2012M at 9:15 am

Arms raised and smile wide, Metta World Chaos walked onto the set of the Conan O’Brien show amid cheers Monday night. He blew kisses to the crowd.

Not the demeanor David Stern hoped for, but probably the demeanor Stern expected. Chaos’ first public comments since elbowing James Harden came on Conan’s TBS talk show.

Chaos was alternately confrontational and contrite about the elbow that landed him a seven-game suspension. Even accused Harden of instigating the incident, to some degree. What’s most relevant is that he did not give the NBA any reason to lengthen the leash. Chaos will be a watched man in the upcoming Western Conference playoff series against Harden’s Thunder.

Here is the elbow-related exchange between Conan, who to his credit asked some tough questions and made some interesting points, and Chaos.

Metta? World Peace? Metta World Peace? “Right now, they’re calling me Animal.”

Conan showed the clip of Harden getting clocked, then Chaos had a squeamish look on his face and Conan said, “You’re reacting the way everyone in America reacted, but you’re the guy that did it. You’re like ‘wow.’”

“When I did it, I didn’t realize anybody was going to be behind me,” Chaos said. “When I got in the locker room and saw the tape, I was, ‘ooh, that was nasty.’ I felt something, but I didn’t know it was an actual head. Maybe a shoulder. I knew somebody had suffered something. I didn’t know it was Harden until I got in the locker room. But actually he does that a lot.”

“Does what,” Conan asked, “runs into people’s elbows?”

“He puts his chin right there,” Chaos said.

Said Conan, “Yeah, yeah, it’s all his fault.”

Chaos tried to explain himself: “When you dunk on somebody, it’s like ‘get off me, you can’t guard me. Don’t touch me.’ There’s like this aura. Ah, get off me. Nobody’s around. Get off me. It’s passion. Passion.”

Conan asked Chaos if he had talked to Harden since the elbow.

“No,” Chaos said. “When it happened, I didn’t know he was really that hurt until the day after, because guys flop in the NBA. So you don’t really know. I knew if I was to get some games, it would benefit Oklahoma, if they was to get me suspended possibly for the playoffs. I didn’t know what was happening, Couple of days, called some third parties, he was doing OK.”

Chaos said he didn’t call Harden “because I might have to play him in the playoffs. I don’t really want to talk to him. But I did want to make sure he was OK. It’s so competitive, you know. I want to make sure he’s OK first, so I did that. But to call him, knowing he would be OK, I could not call him right now, because we have games to play.”

Chaos said he had no comment on the seven-game suspension: “That punishment, I really had no thoughts on the punishment. It was just all the comments. You get a guy like Bill Laimbeer, not him exactly, that was wrong. This guy was clearly in the ’80s playing exactly like I play now. I’m like a retro player. I am. I’m like retro. Lot of guys making comments. Lot of hypocrites. The regular media, I was like ‘OK, they can have their judgment,’ because that’s what they do. But when you get a player that you play with, that you were in the same locker room with, that’s talking about you on TV because he has a new job, a new gig. You’re like ‘OK, man. You was in the locker room when you asked me to protect you. People I know for a fact either did or was happy the way I played game. Then they’re on TV. People calling me, they’re little brother, to see them on TV bashing me, I was like wow. That’s amazing.”

No surprise, Chaos alternately went from serious to goofy. When Conan sidekick Andy Richter leaned in to listen, Chaos turned, smiled, said, “Don’t breathe on me” and put up his elbow.

Conan asked Chaos if he regretted hurting his reputation, which Chaos has worked to restore since his season-long suspension for a brawl early in the 2004-05 season. “I knew I was going to be at a point in time where there was going to be some aggression come out on the court,” Chaos said. “The only thing I was disappointed in was, when people tried to take that aggression on the court and translate it to off-the court things I’ve done. On the court, I’m very passionate. I would do anything it takes to win. But don’t try to tarnish my image in everything I’ve tried, the mission I’m on as far as helping mental patients. Going to different countries, working with different organizations in different places, involving mental health. Don’t try to tarnish my image because of how I played. That is not going to change how I play on the court. That was the only thing that upset me. I knew changing my name was going to be a problem. There is no peace on the court.”

At the end, Chaos became a little contrite: “That elbow was a little bit too much, and I deserved a suspension. I don’t know if I deserved that many games. A week before that, a guy (Kevin Love) looked at a guy and stepped on his head. I said, ‘maybe I can get the same amount of games (two games) he got.”

But Chaos received seven games, in part because of his past. Which is the problem. Chaos will be under a microscope in the Thunder series. Referees, the NBA office, the TNT and ESPN analysts, everything Chaos does will be minutely studied.

Does that mean he will hold back in the way he plays? Maybe. If not, does that mean he can hold back what he calls passion and what most of us call rage?

-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.

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