Ever since Kris Humphries joined the Celtics as part of the blockbuster trade sending Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn, we’ve been wondering about the perceived beef between Rajon Rondo and Humphries after last fall. We’re not the only ones it seems since their teammates have started a voting board to answer who would win if they ever fought again.
Humphries told Boston.com on media day, that teammate “(Keith) Bogans is always joking about it. I think in the locker room, there’s a thing that says Rondo and Hump.”
“I think we’re tied with who would win in a fight on the vote,” Humphries continued.
But Rondo thinks the locker-room has him if the fictional fight played out, telling Toucher and Rick of 98.5 The Game in Boston that “I think I’m up.”
The whole thing is just an act, though. Rondo and Humphries are teammates now and that’s all that matter. If you’ve been paying any attention to Rondo’s career, you know his teammates are like blood, and as long as you’re sharing the same locker-room as him, Rondo has your back.
“We were going to start a feud on Twitter just to mess around with the fans,” Rondo told Masslive.com’s Jay King. “But Kris is a great guy, I have nothing bad to say about him. That was just a heat of the moment battle – and if somebody did that same thing to Kris during the game, I would do the same thing for him.”
We would have been so excited if Rondo and Humphries had gone ahead with their plan to bamboozle fans in a war of words over Twitter. But Rondo goes on to explain his philosophy about what it means to be a teammate, and why he’ll now fight just as hard to defend Humphries if it comes to it on the court:
“That’s just how I look at the guys in my locker room, I just try to take up for them, not necessarily starting a fight, but just let them know we’re not going to be pushovers. And I thought that situation had to be handled that way. Other than that, I didn’t expect to get suspended or go into the stands. It’s just how it happened. Like I said, in the heat of the moment I’m very competitive and that’s how the game went.”
Uh, yeah.
Anyone know where I can get a quick Tetanus shot in Boston? https://t.co/mEOYU6gC
— Kris Humphries (@KrisHumphries) November 29, 2012
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For his part, Humphries is also willing to let last November’s skirmish fall by the wayside — despite the battle scars — and he points to the hard fought battles in the 80s as evidence the league is actually a lot tamer these days.
“That was really nothing. It’s basketball. If you watch some old NBA games in the 80s man, people are throwing punches and not even getting kicked out of the game. That was nothing, and I’m actually excited to play with a guard that can play up-tempo the whole game, and be really – he’s exciting to watch, and I can’t wait to play with him.”
So Humphries is actually looking forward to playing with Rondo next season because he’s a point guard that can really push the pace (solid Deron Williams locker-room material here, too). The Nets played at the second-slowest pace last season with Humphries still in a Brooklyn jersey.
[Masslive]
So who you got in a fight between the two Celtics teammates?
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