Rasheed Wallace has some incredible stories to tell across his time on the infamous Portland Trail Blazers of the early 2000s and then the 2004 Pistons. The Blazers had a bad reputation during Wallace’s time, being nicknamed the ‘Jail Blazers’ for the aggressive squad they had built.
That came to haunt them during an all-out brawl between Ruben Patterson and Zach Randolph, a story that Wallace shared in detail on Gilbert Arenas’ show.
“We’re in the locker room. Me and Bonzi are the Vince McMahon and hyping them up. ‘My man Zeebo ain’t going for that sh*t man!’ Then Bonzi is like ‘Rube is my man’, this and that. We’re all in the hot tub, about seven dudes in there, and we talking sh*t, me and Bonzi. We go to the dressing room areas and that’s where they get to scrapping. It’s like they’re in the WWF, they’re locking up. Zach had him, lifted up, and I swear, Rube did some Olympic Gold medal technical sh*t. All he did was shift his body and that put Zach out of position. Rube slammed Zach, and we were like ‘Ohhh sh*t!’ We called it the ‘Slam Heard Around The World’. That was me and Bonzi fault right there, Zach was out for like two weeks because of a f***ed up back.”
Rasheed Wallace was on the Gilbert Arenas show and tells the story about the worst locker room fight he ever instigated between Zach Randolph and Ruben Patterson😂😂 pic.twitter.com/e22AYe725C
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) December 6, 2023
Rasheed then told the story of how Randolph got his revenge on Ruben a few weeks later after his back had healed up.
“Rube slams Zach. A couple of weeks later after Zach comes back. Rube and Q are having beef over a foul or something, but they took that sh*t personal. They were face-to-face. We all saw it but I didn’t expect it. Out of nowhere, Zach came in and hit Rube in the face and fractured his orbital socket. Oh my God, I was never more scared in the NBA than at this time. Rube Patterson turned into the Incredible Hulk. It took like nine people to stop him. We were trying to hold him back. ‘F**k that Sheed, I’mma kill him.'”
Both Randolph and Patterson saw their tenure on the Blazers come to an end a few seasons after the fight. Randolph would eventually find a home on the Grizzlies and become a franchise legend, while Patterson would be out of the league two years after leaving Portland.
Has Anything Similar Happened In The NBA?
The Patterson-Randolph fight is often considered one of the best urban legend stories in the NBA, with Wallace’s full account of the fight filling in a lot of blanks that fans had over the fight. The NBA is a very different league now and we rarely see actual fights between opposing teams, let alone the same team. But there is an obvious example from last season that can be discussed.
Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole in practice over alleged trash-talking last summer, leading to Poole’s exit from the franchise this year. Green is the only one bringing that intensity on the court, putting Rudy Gobert in a headlock and getting suspended five games for it. Rasheed Wallace explained Green’s behavior is the way it is because he grew up around the ’04 Pistons locker room.
The only example in the modern NBA of a fight that severe comes from the Chicago Bulls when Bobby Portis Jr. punched Nikola Mirotic so hard that Mirotic was left with a bloody face and had to be hospitalized. Incidents like this happen rarely in the NBA, but whenever they do, it’s a spectacle for all.
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