"If the policemen had not entered the dressing room with guns, I would have stabbed Hakeem Oljuan"

Vernon Maxwell recalled the violent confrontation, at halftime of one of Houston's games in the nineties: "This son of a bitch slapped me, I threw a chair at him and broke the glass in the locker room. Everyone ran and the police came in with guns drawn."

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sport

04/08/2022

Thursday, 04 August 2022, 10:44 Updated: 10:49

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In the mid-nineties, Houston was one of the best teams in the NBA.

The Rockets won two consecutive championships (1994, 1995), but behind the scenes not everything was rosy, as it turns out.

The team's player in those years Vernon Maxwell revealed a rather violent and scary confrontation he had with the team's star Hakeem Oljuan - a confrontation that resulted in armed policemen bursting into the locker room.

He was involved in many incidents throughout his career.

Maxwell (Photo: GettyImages, Tim DeFrisco / Stringer)

It all started going down to halftime in one of the games, when Maxwell complained that his teammates weren't passing him enough.

In the dressing room, Oljuan slapped the loud guard.

"I said, damn, that son of a bitch slapped me!"

recalled Maxwell on Gilbert Arenas' podcast — a man who knows a thing or two himself about team-mate confrontations.

"This son of a bitch hurt me so much, he kicked me out of my chair."

Maxwell, a tough player who, among other things, beat up a fan and was involved in several other incidents throughout his career, was not charged.

"I jumped up, grabbed my chair and threw it at him, at that son of a bitch," he added and said.

"I broke the locker room glass. Everyone ran and the cops came in, guns drawn. They pointed guns at me at halftime of an NBA game."

According to Maxwell, if the policemen had not calmed down the atmosphere, "I would have chased Hakim and stabbed him."

In the end the two reconciled.

"After that, Hakim converted to Islam," he said.

"He was so quiet, so humble. He wanted me to convert to Islam after him, and I couldn't do that. But despite everything, he was a great teammate."

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Tags

• Hakeem Oljoan

• Vernon Maxwell

• Houston Rockets