Stephen Jackson on the Palace brawl, gunplay at strip club and Warriors president Robert Rowell

November 18, 2:03 PMGolden State Warriors ExaminerMatt Steinmetz

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Stephen Jackson: Face of the Warriors' franchise 

Less than two years ago, Stephen Jackson's name was dirt. No rehash necessary: brawl at the Palace, gunplay outside an Indianapolis strip club.

Now he's a Bay Area favorite and face of the Warriors' franchise after signing a three-year contract extension that will likely keep him a Warrior through 2013.

That's all the intro you need. This is Jackson on a variety of topics, including his past transgressions, his checkered reputation and his thoughts on Warriors team president Robert Rowell.

This is a two-parter because it's going to take a while to post.

M.S.: Let’s talk about your reputation. When you came here your reputation was shot. You had the incident with the gun, you had the incident with the brawl in Detroit. People were scared of you. Where was your head at then?

STEPHEN JACKSON: The biggest thing for me was that I understood my intentions in both incidents. As far as the Detroit incident, I wasn’t the one who went into the stands first. I didn’t start the fight. My whole intention was to go up there and help my teammates, not to punch somebody.

Now, it that happened that way because as soon as I got in the stands, my teammate was getting grabbed by a fan and getting a beer thrown in his face.

So I just retaliated. OK, I was wrong. I deserved to be punished. Cool. At the same time when you’re part of a team, part of a family, when you’re in an arena with 15 thousand people and there are only 15 of you, that’s how I was raised.

I wasn’t raised to run out and protect myself because at the end of the day you go home and protect yourself you've still got to live with something that happened to someone else that you call your family or your brother.

Every situation I’ve been in I was trying to help somebody. It wasn’t me being a thug. Wasn’t me trying to be an a--hole. Wasn’t me trying to be somebody I’m not. It was me coming to the aid of my brother, someone I call my brother.

Now, with the strip club, obviously I handled it wrong, but I had my gun in the right way. I had a gun license. I didn’t attempt to shoot anybody until I got hit by a car. The situation was always me being at the aid of somebody else. And it’s the same way on the court.

What upset me was how people perceived me as being a troublemaker. Before those two incidents I had never been in any trouble. None of that stuff. It just seemed like those two incidents made a cloud follow me for the rest of my career _ until I got here.

M.S.: I kind of think of you as someone who has transformed your image since getting here, but it sounds like you’re the same guy.

STEPHEN JACKSON: I am the same guy. Right now I’m making better decisions. Just say I got pulled over for speeding and news cameras happen to see me. They'll probably blow it up because of those two incidents. So I just make better decisions, but I’m the same person. I still get technical fouls. I won’t get kicked out of games, but I’m the same person.

I don’t see a change in me. Obviously, I’m growing up and as you grow up you make better decision. That’s what I think is going here.

M.S.: When you got here, and people dealt with you for the first time could you tell people were …

STEPHEN JACKSON: Hesitant. People din’t know if I could be talked to or not. People didn’t know if I was going to curse them out or if I was going to be like "Get the (expletive) out of my face."I got that vibe from everybody.

But I always say "The earth is my turf,” because I can go into any neighborhood and talk to anyone because I have been that person. Any person can come up to me and talk to me and know I’m not that arrogant guy. I’ve never been arrogant. I’m confident. There’s a difference between arrogance and confidence.

I knew it was going to be like that coming here because nobody knew me. All they knew was that’s the guy who was shooting at the strip club and that’s the guy who went into the stands.

It was a lot of that when I first came. But as I started to move around the city and people saw they could come up anytime or somebody could be on the street on the side of the road asking for an autograph and I might pull over. People are starting to see the real person and not judge me off the incidents.

STEPHEN JACKSON INTERVIEW CONTINUED