NBA SUPERSTAR RON ARTEST’S move to the British Basketball League remains in jeopardy after insurance problems caused the move to stall.
The locked-out LA Lakers star has been in negotiations with the Cheshire Jets since the beginning of the month as he searches for a team to play with while the NBA dispute continues.
Artest, 31, was due to visit Chester last weekend but postponed his visit at the last minute after problems with the insurance cover offered by the Jets came to light.
The small forward still has three years remaining on his Lakers contract, thought to be worth over $20m, but would invalidate that deal if injured while playing with another team during the lockout.
Jets club director Pete Hawkins refused to give up on the chase, however, telling the Chester Chronicle that “we are still trying hard to ensure Ron has the protection he needs to play.”
Negotiations between the two parties have slowed considerably since, but speaking to the LA Times, Artest’s agent David Bauman said that the deal was still very much alive, provided the insurance issue could be resolved.
“Ron fully intends to play for the Jets,” Bauman said earlier this week.
Once all the information trickled in and we had a good pow-wow and it was very apparent there was a $21-million risk to agreeing to a deal like this, that’s when we started to slow things down a little bit.
