EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — It will be in the first paragraph of his obituary, no matter the NBA titles, no matter the years of relatively civil behavior.

Ron Artest knows that, now.
“He doesn’t mind talking about it,” said David Bauman, Artest’s agent, at the Los Angeles Lakers’ facility Wednesday. “He does mind when somebody tries to trap him with it.”
It was Nov. 19, 2004, when we heard Artest had jumped off the scorer’s table in Detroit and attacked the crowd. That night, Mark Sanchez was quarterbacking Mission Viejo in a high school football game. That’s how long ago it was. He’s moved on and so has Artest, who understands that not everybody else wants to.
“I wasn’t a very good teammate in Indiana,” he said during an otherwise ebullient news conference, as the Lakers officially welcomed Artest.
“I couldn’t handle the losing. I would go in and tear up everybody else’s uniform. When I couldn’t play, I realized how much I wanted to play and I decided I was just going to have fun. You guys can write whatever you want about me. That’s cool. I’ll read it and move on. It’s going to be money in my pocket.”
What happened is that Artest, near the end of a victory over Detroit, fouled Ben Wallace unnecessarily hard. Wallace shoved him and shouted at him, and Artest lay ceremoniously on the scorer’s table.
“He was overdoing the part about being a pacifist,” said Fran Fraschilla, the ESPN analyst who recruited Artest to St. John’s and coached him there.
Then a fan hit Artest with a full beverage cup. Artest stormed into the seats with two other Pacers.
He later struck a spectator on the court. The next day he was suspended for the remaining 73 games of the season.
“The situation was out of my control,” Artest said. “If you do take the brawl away, I’ve changed, anyway.”
Asked how much, Artest joked, “I don’t lay on tables anymore.”
Artest has had domestic problems and suspensions. He wanted to take a month off in Indiana to run his record label. The Lakers are his fifth team. But the other permanent part of the record is that teammates and coaches swear by Artest, and he is a former defensive player of the year who can light up the 3-point line.
Artest, for his part, swore it wouldn’t matter if he scored a point as long as the Lakers won this championship.
Next breath: “Lamar (Odom) told me to say that. I really want to average 50.”
Kupchak laughed. A week ago he didn’t. The Ariza negotiations were going haywire. Even though Kupchak knew Artest badly wanted to play here, Houston was planning to enrich him.
Then, on June 30, Houston general manager Darryl Morey told Bauman that Yao Ming was probably out for the year.
“He told me their stance on Ron had changed,” Bauman said.
Artest then committed to five years with the Lakers.
“I’m underpaid again,” Artest said, gigging Kupchak again. “But I’ve had to scrounge for pennies. If you can’t live on $33 million (actually $33.9), you can’t live.”
Artest grew up in Queensbridge, a tough project near the 59th Street Bridge in New York. He had a vigilant dad, an ex-boxer also named Ron, who schooled young Ron even though he lived elsewhere. He also saw the usual crimes and misdemeanors.
“He came out with a chip on his shoulder,” Fraschilla said.
There are numerous stories of Artest’s court and locker-room rage, and Fraschilla heard and saw them all.
“To coach New Yorkers, you have to be crazier than your craziest player,” Fraschilla said. “I used to provoke him — and I’m 5-foot-7 — because I wanted him to drive the intensity up. I’d put him on the second team in practice, I felt like a lion tamer at times. But it’s a mistake to coddle him. He does respect authority.
“Now, there will be some incidents, and he’ll say some things. Maybe that’s not all bad. Dennis Rodman went to play for Phil Jackson in Chicago to get a ring. When Ron committed, that’s the first thing I thought of.”
Here Artest will be held accountable by Jackson, Kobe Bryant and Lakerdom generally.
“It was a no-brainer,” he said, “which is good, because I didn’t finish college.”
And when he does see a Laker fan on the street, that fan invariably assures him that the ring is in the mail. Can it be that easy? Artest might think so. He has dropped in on Laker playoff games before and sat on Limo Row, pressing his nose against the Laker window.
“No, I just wanted some media time,” Artest said. “I had my L.A. on.”
All he has to remember is that, for a Laker, L.A. is always on.