Ron Artest Raises Over $500,000 By Raffling Off His Championship Ring

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 29th 2010 at 7:01PM

When the Los Angeles Lakers received their championship rings earlier this year player Ron Artest announced that he would would be raffling his ring off to raise money for his Xcel University charity which helps raise money for mental health awareness and treatment. Artest famously thanked his psychiatrist in the press conference after the Lakers won the championship and has been public about his own therapy. Earlier this month Artest presented Pacific Clinics with a $50,000 check.

Artest ended up raising around $650,000 for his ring. The winner was Raymond Mikkael, a father of four from Hawthorne, California. Check out video of Artest and Mikkael here. The rings were created by Jason of Beverly Hills and have some significant details including a small piece of leather from the Game 7 ball set into the underside of each of the rings. Each ring also has the player's three-dimensional likeness sculpted into the side of the ring. The ring's face has two trophies signifying back to back victories made from a custom batch of 16 karat gold (last year's rings were made of 15 karat gold) and 16 oversized round brilliant white diamonds to indicate the 16 Lakers' championships. The rings were designed with Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

Tags: Jason of beverly hills, los angeles lakers, ron artest