INDIANAPOLIS _ A man in a brown suit holding a briefcase got Metta World Peace's attention as he walked down a street in downtown Indianapolis on Monday wearing a black Los Angeles Lakers sweatshirt.
"Hey Ron," the man said. "Good to see you here, Ron."
A block away a man poked his head out of a car window to shout the same name in exchange for a wave.
"What's up, Mr. Artest," a man wearing a Chicago Cubs cap said. About an hour earlier, a woman told him she wished the Indiana Pacers had brought him back.
He's still Ron Artest in this town, where he was at his best as a player despite a tumultuous tenure. And World Peace, who changed his name in 2011, doesn't have an issue with that.
"I just changed my name for me," he said while walking down the brick pathway that encircles a neoclassical memorial to fallen soldiers and sailors in Indianapolis' monument circle. "I don't like to try to change people's minds."
On Tuesday the Lakers will play the Indiana Pacers and World Peace will play as a visitor, as he has done for the last 10 seasons, ever since his participation in the brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills led to his departure from the franchise.
But Indianapolis still holds meaning for World Peace. In fact, it was only this year that he finally sold his home in a suburb of the city.
"We held it for a while," World Peace said. "My kids, they consider Indiana home, too. My daughter was born here. Everybody's got an attachment."
That fans remember him fondly makes him feel good. They remember, as he does, that he was at his best as a basketball player here. It was with the Pacers that World Peace was selected the NBA's defensive player of the year in 2004.
"I was amazing," World Peace said. "My defense, my offense, they had never seen it. Not really. I was the last defensive player of the year here. I think I got the highest individual award here. They remember that, to have one of the best on your team. It's going to be, somebody might surpass what I've done here. There were games when I was getting eight steals and 25 points. It was pretty cool. For me it was fun."
As he looks back on a career that spans 17 seasons, there might be some part of him that wishes things ended differently between him and the Pacers. If there is, that stays buried mostly.
"Something's always gonna happen," World Peace said. "Don't regret anything because whether you go through it or someone else goes through it, it's going to happen."
