The Portland Trail Blazers of 20 years ago were a turbulent group. A group full of highly explosive personalities. The locker room seemingly was always ready to erupt.
Two of the most volatile players were Zach Randolph and Ruben Patterson. The two eventually got into a fight, according to Rasheed Wallace. Wallace, appearing on Gilbert Arenas’ podcast that dropped Wednesday, said what started out as just trash-talking devolved into a take-no-prisoners fight.
Wallace said the tension started during practice, when Patterson and Qyntel Woods started beefing and the agitation continued as a group of players soaked in a hot tub. Wallace was hyping Randolph - a close friend of Woods - while teammate Bonzi Wells was egging on Patterson.
“My guy Z-Bo (Randolph), he not going for that (stuff)!” Wallace said.
Wallace said he and Wells continued to escalate the situation in the locker room. Before long, Randolph and Patterson started fighting, with Randolph gaining the upper hand. Briefly.
“Zach had him,” Wallace said. “But Rube did some Olympic gold medal technical (stuff). All he did shift his body a little bit and that put Zach out of position.
“Boom! Rube slammed Zach. We called it the ‘Slam heard ‘round the world.’ "
Wallace said Randolph hurt his back and was out of action for about two weeks. Wallace said he and Wells felt bad.
“We took that a little too far,” Wallace said.