Following the Golden State Warriors win over the San Antonio Spurs, Lakers forward Metta World Peace sat in on the set for ABC 7’s Sports Zone post game show.
During the interview, Michael Cooper and Lisa Leslie questioned World Peace on myriad topics that included, but weren’t limited to, his thoughts on Dwight Howard, his own contract situation this off season and Mike D’Antoni.
Here are some of the highlights from the World Peace interview:
Ron on whether Dwight’s joking nature bothered him:
“At first it did. When I first met Dwight in our first practices together and our first games in the regular season I was like, ‘he’s joking a little bit too much.’ But then I decided not to judge people and I decided to work with my teammates — so as I got into more games with Dwight — I did see him working really hard, blocking shots, playing with a back injury, but he was still playing hard. So then I said, ‘you know what, we just have to work with what we have.’ But at first, it was a little bit frustrating.”
Metta on whether he’s going to opt out of his contract:
“I don’t really know yet. I want to be a Laker for a long time, and hopefully it will work out. Hopefully I can be a Laker for a long time, but at the end of the day I will have nothing to be upset about because there’s so many teams out there. Overseas is paying well now, the Lakers are paying well, everybody is paying well.
Metta on the coaching situation:
“I think the difference between the coaches is that Phil obviously has a lot of rings and has coached some great players. I just think Phil is a little bit more demanding of the superstars. I think collectively we may have taken advantage of Mike Brown and Mike D’Antoni, not really giving them enough respect, which wasn’t fair to them. Next year we just have to make sure that we let these coaches coach, because these coaches are great coaches for a reason — they’re Lakers coaches for a reason. If we let them do their job, we’ll have a successful year.
For the full interview, check out the two videos below.
