The Boston Celtics team that won the NBA championship in 2008 and went to the NBA Finals in 2010 had one of the best rosters in the league, having the likes of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen as their best players. Besides that, they had other players that did the job and led them to be successful over a decade ago.
Rajon Rondo was probably the fourth Beatle of that group, as the point guard found his place in the world in Boston and made fans go crazy with his flashy playstyle and big assists to teammates. Even though things looked great from the outside, it wasn’t as cordial in the locker room.
Ray Allen and Rondo were beefing at the same time the team was trying to win championships, which made things hard for everybody. Things got so heated between these two that their teammates settled for a boxing match to finish the beef. Kendrick Perkins had commented about this before, revealing that the point guard and the shooting guard threw hands to settle their feud.
“When things started to go south, in my opinion, the first incident was when Ray was pushing so hard to trade Rondo for CP3, and it got back to Rondo. I think right there, we started having a little friction. We made Ray and Rondo actually box it out. They had so much beef. We got to the practice facility, we bought the boxing gloves, and they actually had to box it out.”
Glen Davis recently chatted with VladTV, confirming Perkins’ story, saying that Allen’s pushing for a Chris Paul trade didn’t sit well with Rondo.
“Ray was (supposedly) wanting Chris Paul in a trade,” Davis said via Sportscasting. “That’s after we won it. Rondo didn’t like that.
“And sometimes Ray, on defense, would suck ass, and Doc (Rivers) wouldn’t say s***. It’s like, ‘Rondo, you’re f***ing up. Chauncey Billups is killing you.’
“Rondo’s like, ‘Yo, Chauncey Billups ain’t f***ing scored this f***ing series. It’s Rip Hamilton that’s busting our ass.’ S*** like that was happening, and they had a beef.”
This situation prompted the rest of the team to set up a boxing match to try to end all of this.
“They boxed it out,” Davis said. “They put on gloves and really threw hands. I was there.”
Davis was asked who won, and he couldn’t come to a conclusive decision.
“You could just tell Rondo was trying to knock his head off,” Davis said. “Ray was jabbing.”
Davis said the fight took place inside a weight-room area.
DJ Vlad asked if Celtics management had any idea this was going on.
“Oh, hell no,” Davis laughed.
This is one of the most famous beef between teammates in the NBA, and you know things were really tense when you learn how they decided to end everything. Allen would leave the Celtics in the summer of 2012 to join the Miami Heat, starting beef with another teammate in Kevin Garnett.
The Celtics assembled a terrific team at the end of the 2000s, but the battle of egos hurt them too much.
