Whether he's Ron Artest, Metta World Peace, or Metta Sandiford-Artest, one thing that hasn't changed is his love for the game basketball. His career spanned across 17 seasons in the NBA with six different teams, including the NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers back in 2010.

Despite having been retired for five seasons, Sandiford-Artest remains involved with the NBA. The 2003-04 Defensive Player of the Year was recently spotted at NBA Summer League, where he attended games, engaged with current and former peers, and even took some photos with fans.

Sandiford-Artest also stopped by for a quick chat with Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints on a number of things currently making headlines in the NBA, including Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, and Kevin Durant.

Tomer Azarly: Kevin Durant has requested a trade. Kyrie Irving‘s future remains in limbo with some of the rumors out there. You thoughts on the Brooklyn Nets situation?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: I think KD, he wants to win. He’s really competitive and it is what it is. Everybody’s jockeying for position to win. Players, teams, so more power to him.

What do you make of the shift we've seen where players are seemingly requesting more trades now?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Me personally, I requested trades really unprofessionally when I played, so I don’t really have an opinion, because the way I approached it was not professional. I can’t really give you an opinion on how another player is requesting trades, but what I can say is there’s a way to do it. And I wouldn’t do it how I did it. I would just do it straight direct to the teams and try to work it out as professionally as possible.

There's been a lot of smoke around Kyrie Irving and a trade to the Lakers. Your thoughts on the idea of that happening?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Man… I don’t want to speak too early. The reason being is I do things with the Lakers organization and I’m a fan of the team, so me personally, I wouldn’t wanna say anything like, ‘oh I would love to have Kyrie,’ knowing that it’s players there already. I’d rather wait. Other organizations, maybe I can speak on it. But certain organizations that I’m a little tight with, I don’t wanna say much. I’m talking to the players, sometimes they see me, so it’s a fine line.”

Do you think they can make it work with Russell Westbrook?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: “Yeah, I do. I’m with the team they have. I’m not thinking about, ‘they should get this person, they should get that person.’ I’m moreso thinking about the team that they have, how can that team get better? But then obviously, they’re gonna make their decisions.”

Andre Iguodala recently said that if Rasheed Wallace was in the NBA today, he would be a top five player and be better than Giannis Antetokounmpo. As someone who played against all of them, you agree? Disagree?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Oooh. That’s interesting. I… I wanna hear what Rasheed has to say because I believe in Rasheed’s game. I think Rasheed and Giannis would’ve had lots of battles if they did play against each other. But the fact of the matter is Giannis won a title with his team and he also won MVP and he’s dominant, so I think in terms of the era, Giannis is dominating his era. Rasheed played very well and he dominated the games in played in, but in an era, I think it was Kobe or maybe Shaq or maybe Duncan, but I do believe in Rasheed’s game. Iguodala has a lot of credibility, so I would love to hear why he said that because that's kind of shocking to me.

We've talked about the Lakers, but wanted to get your thoughts on the LA Clippers, who are expected to get Kawhi Leonard back. What are your thoughts on them?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Anybody in LA, I love. I live in LA. T-Lue is a Laker, also a Clipper, so I hope he does well. Hopefully we get Kawhi back. I wanna see Kawhi back. I’m not playing. I wanna see Kawhi back. So hopefully he comes back with a vengeance and comes back. I wanna see him on the court.

Being the defensive specialist that you were, what makes Kawhi Leonard special?

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Kawhi is special because he’s in shape. And then he can score, and he can play defense. He’s incredible. He’s incredibly special. Is he top 75?

Yeah.

Metta Sandiford-Artest: God damn, he’s incredibly special.