The basketball star Ron Artest, a New York City native and former St. John’s University player, was suspended for the rest of the season yesterday for his involvement in a bench-clearing brawl in which several fans became involved.

The fight came in the last minute of Friday night’s game in Detroit between Mr. Artest’s team, the Indiana Pacers, and the reigning league champions, the Detroit Pistons.

The Associated Press reported that the National Basketball Association also imposed penalties on three of Mr. Artest’s Indiana teammates and on five Pistons players.

The game was called with 45.9 seconds remaining in a 97-82 Indiana victory. Down to only a six-man team due to the suspensions, the Pacers dropped Saturday night’s game to the Orlando Magic, 86-83.

The brawl and the suspension of Mr. Artest mark another episode in a career marked by inspired play and by a reputation for flagrant fouls and uncontrollable bursts of anger.

Michael Chatfield, who grew up with Mr. Artest in the Queensbridge Housing Complex in Long Island City, Queens, and played basketball with him, described Mr. Artest as being focused and intense while on the basketball court.

“He got into fights, you know, but they were all about basketball,” he said yesterday of Mr. Artest’s youth. “It gets pretty emotional on the court.”

More recent incidents included a one-game suspension last year for elbowing the Portland Trail Blazers’ Derek Anderson in the head and the destruction of a $100,000 high-definition camera at Madison Square Garden. In the 2002-03 season Mr. Artest was suspended for 12 games.

He has been inconsistent in other ways, too. Despite scoring 31 points in a season-opening victory against Cleveland, he was benched later this season when he asked for a month off to recuperate from promoting an R &B CD by a group on his record label.

At the same time, Mr. Artest, who turned 25 this month, has been known for his charity work and his fidelity to his New York City roots. He recently used his basketball skills in an all-star game to benefit Wheelchair Charities Inc., a New Yorkbased organization that supplies people in need with wheelchairs and other supplies. He has also organized charity basketball events on the Queensbridge courts where he first developed his skills.

Mr. Artest graduated from Manhattan’s LaSalle Academy in 1997 as a MacDonald’s All-American player and at St. John’s was a first-team All-Big East selection and a third-team All-American selection in his sophomore year. That year the Red Storm finished only three points short of a Final Four appearance, losing to Ohio State University.

After two years of college basketball, Mr. Artest was drafted by the Chicago Bulls as a first-round pick in 1999. In his first year he was picked for the NBA’s All-Rookie second team. He was traded to the Pacers in the 2001-02 season.