The NBA is full of competitive players who often make things heated even in their own locker room, not just with opponents. Former NBA player Terrence Ross recently revealed that he witnessed one of his teammates of the Orlando Magic almost punch another teammate just for joking about him a lot.
If it wasn’t for Mo Bamba, the seven-foot center who was on the Magic at the time, a fight would’ve likely broken out on the Magic’s team flight before 2023-24, as Ross and Bamba both left the Magic near the end of the 2022-23 season. On a recent appearance on his own podcast, Ross recalled the story without naming any names other than Bamba’s.
“I got a great story, oh my god, this is great! I was with the Magic, and it was during a flight… not safe at all. So it’s a guard talking to a big man, I’m not gonna say no names… he cracks a joke on the big man that he didn’t particularly like. So the guard kept repeating the same joke over and over.”
“So, like this dude is turning into a ticking time bomb. The big man was like, ‘I bet you won’t say it again,’ and the little man said it again. The big man reaches across the table and grabs the dude by the throat. He’s about to swing on him, right?”
“Yo, thank god, I’ll say one name, Mo Bamba saved the day. He grabbed the other big man right at the last second, right when his arm was cocked, and held him back, bro.”
“This dude was about to knock his f**king lights out. And I’m still waking up to two or three guys trying to restrain him… I’m not going to lie, I feel kind of responsible.”
Ross went on to explain that the guard who was cracking jokes used to poke fun at Ross before he set him straight. As a result, the guard started looking for a new person to poke and found the big man in this story.
Ross continued to justify the actions of the big man and claimed that since players hit the court with so many different players across their career, it is natural to meet even a teammate whom they just cannot tolerate.
“Bro, we’re just in each other’s personal spaces so often… but here’s the thing on the court, we were like this,” Ross says while crossing his fingers to signify how close-knit the brotherhood was. At the end of the day, just like how siblings fight, even players ended up being at odds with each other that way. They did not carry any of that off-the-court animosity between teammates onto the court and played like professionals.
