Appearing on VICELAND's TV show Desus & Mero, former NBA All-Star and 2003 Rookie of the Year Amar'e Stoudemire spoke about several topics, including the craziest thing he has seen in an NBA locker room. Stoudemire said he once saw a player put another teammate in a headlock after the latter would not stop picking on the former. When Amar'e approached his recently head-locked teammate laying on the ground, he realized he had genuinely passed out.
You can listen to the full segment here:
We talk to @Amareisreal about the Christmas game-winner that wasn't, playing in Israel, art collecting, KG, and a wild locker room confrontation. pic.twitter.com/R6QUqQwBuF
— DESUS & MERO on VICELAND (@DesusandMeroVL) January 16, 2018
Stoudemire did not name the participants of the incident. By the description he gave, though, the story sounds awfully similar to a couple of anecdotes about Shaquille O'Neal putting a teammate in a headlock when he played for the Phoenix Suns.
In late 2013, former Suns star Grant Hill told his version of the time O'Neal put Gordan Giricek on a sleeper hold and Giricek passed out.
During a 2016 All-Star Weekend NBA on TNT segment, in which Steve Nash was invited as a guest, Shaq confirmed the story:
“When I played with Phoenix, Steve got mad at me one time in the locker room. You remember why?” O'Neal asked Nash. “Everybody's trying to get serious, but [Giricek] just kept talking. So I told him, I said, ‘Gordan, shut up. We only got 15 minutes. Don't say nothing else to me.' But he was playing, so I put him in a chokehold. Steve came out of the bathroom and seen him on the floor.”
“Game starts in 25 minutes and the guy's about to die in the locker room,” Nash added as the crew laughed.
Stoudemire spent the majority of his career, eight out of 14 seasons, in Phoenix. All signs point to O'Neal and Giricek being the characters in Stoudemire's crazy story. This comes at the heels of a fight between Arron Afflalo of the Orlando Magic and Nemanja Bjelica of the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday. The latter put Afflalo in a headlock to prevent further punches being thrown.
Fairly recently, the L.A. Clippers and the Houston Rockets were also involved in a locker room incident at Staples Center.
There was also a reported locker room altercation between Kyle Lowry and Ben Simmons during an earlier game on Monday after both got ejected from the game, but it was later confirmed nothing took place.
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