The Los Angeles Clippers built Intuit Dome with one goal in mind: make the crowd part of the game. From the massive Halo Board hanging over the court to interactive technology throughout the arena, the team has looked for new ways to turn fan energy into part of the experience.

That idea later grew into Wave Makers, the Clippers’ fan-engagement and rewards program. But before the program became a larger part of the Intuit Dome experience, a much smaller piece of technology was already putting fan energy on the arena’s giant screen.

Metta World Peace now says his son, Jeron Artest, was one of the original designers behind that early technology. The former Lakers star wrote on X, “Fun Fact, my son Jeron Artest was the original of the designers of @LAClippers Water Wave fan engagement tech on the that huge LED screen. I’m so proud of him. Graduated high school early, attended UCI and USC and is an actual pre Ai game developer. Although he only got roughly $7500 for the talented work, when you’re young, sometimes you have to pay your dues. Thanks to the clippers for letting my son be one of the originators.”

The research into Jeron’s work draws an important line between Metta’s claim and the Clippers’ broader technology system. “Water Wave” refers to an early screen-based interactive feature, while Wave Makers is the much larger fan loyalty and gamification platform connected to the LA Clippers + Intuit Dome app. The research does not establish Jeron as the person behind the entire Wave Makers system.

The technology Jeron is said to have worked on was tied to the arena’s massive Halo Board. Daktronics built the double-sided 4K UHD display, which spans nearly an acre and contains 233 million LEDs. The research describes Water Wave as a visual activation that could turn crowd energy into moving water-wave graphics on that screen.

Jeron’s background also makes the claim less out of place. He taught himself JavaScript, HTML and CSS as a child and published his first iOS game, Jeronimo, at 13. At UC Irvine, he majored in Computer Game Science while playing Division I basketball, before later moving into the USC Games program.

His work in gaming continued after college. The research identifies Jeron as the founder and CEO of Test Jar Labs and also points to his game-development portfolio, which includes projects such as Mooo-dy, Happy Holidays 2024, Ghostie: Runner, Soc-Kitty and We Will Cook You.

Meanwhile, the Clippers have built a much larger system around the same basic idea: get fans involved and reward them for it. Wave Makers uses the team’s mobile app to track Experience Points, missions, badges and rewards, while Intuit Dome also uses technology such as the Halo Board and interactive seat hardware during games.

Gillian Zucker, CEO of Halo Sports & Entertainment, explained the thinking behind that approach: “Because of the tools that we have implemented in the construction of the arena, it sparked this idea that we could really gamify cheering and incent fans to be the sixth man and propel our team to win.”

That philosophy has also extended beyond the building. In May 2025, Steve Ballmer chartered a plane to take more than 120 Clippers supporters to Denver for Game 7 against the Nuggets, with fans seated directly behind the home basket. It was another example of the franchise trying to carry its home-court energy with its supporters wherever they go.

For Jeron, however, the most unusual part of the story may be that his connection to the Clippers came before the technology became part of a much larger fan-engagement system. Metta’s $7,500 figure remains based solely on his social-media post and has not been independently verified by a Clippers statement or public contract. The Clippers and their major technology partners also have not publicly credited Jeron by name in the materials reviewed for the story.

So while Jeron’s exact place in the larger Intuit Dome technology operation remains limited to what can be established from the available evidence, Metta’s revelation points to an intriguing early chapter in his son’s career: a young game developer contributing to a piece of Clippers arena technology before the franchise turned fan participation into one of the defining ideas behind its new home.