- In October of 2018, the Lakers and Rockets had
a little confrontation. It settled down, then suddenly reignited into something way bigger. That's because these
two guys got involved, Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo. Their part in this fight
was a long time coming. (mysterious music) Chris Paul and Rajon
Rondo are great examples of how much the team that drafts you affects the course of your career. In 2005, Paul was drafted
fourth out of Wake Forest by a terrible New Orleans Hornets team. This would be the same year the Hornets began hungering down in Oklahoma while their home city recovered
from Hurricane Katrina. The team improved around
their rookie of the year point guard, but not enough
to make the playoffs. So in the summer of '06,
the Hornets made moves, signing sharp shooter, Peja Stojakovic, then trading for big man Tyson Chandler. But injuries hampered them, and they still couldn't
crack the post-season. The '07-'08 season would be
the Hornets breakthrough. They returned to New Orleans. Paul and power forward, David West, became first-time All-Stars. Byron Scott won Coach of the Year. New Orleans won a
franchise record 56 games, made the playoffs, and destroyed
Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks in the first round. In the next round, the
Hornets came out strong against the defending champion Spurs, but after leading the series 2-0 and 3-2, lost the round in a
heartbreaking game seven defeat. The Spurs advanced to
the conference finals where they fell to the Lakers, who went onto the NBA Finals and lost to a Boston Celtics team with a kid named Rajon
Rondo at point guard. Rondo, like Paul, was a young
rising star at his position. Unlike Paul, Rondo had entered the league a relatively unheralded prospect. A mediocre Celtics team
acquired him on draft night '06 after he was picked 21st out of Kentucky. While Rondo played his way into the starting lineup
his rookie season, Celtics star Paul Pierce
missed a bunch of games due to injury. Boston stayed quite bad,
winning just 24 games, but while Chris Paul's Hornets
had made some nice moves, Rondo's Celtics got a makeover
of historic magnitude. They traded their lottery
pick for Ray Allen, made an even bigger
trade for Kevin Garnett a few days later, then made
the greatest turnaround in NBA history, finishing with 66 wins just a year after winning 24. And then, they won it all. - Anything's possible! - Rondo went from promising rookie on a garbage team to starting
point guard on a champion. That's pretty wild. So now, we're in the summer of '08, which is an important juncture because according to more recent accounts, that's when the beef began. After that 2018 Rockets Lakers fight, some reporters pointed
back to the 2008 Olympics where Paul led the USA to a gold medal while Rondo supposedly
didn't make it past tryouts. Reports from the time
say Rondo was invited to the select team, the younger players who scrimmage against Team
USA before competition. Rondo and fellow Celtics
youngster Kendrick Perkins understandably declined the invitation after playing NBA games well into June. And Rondo would never have
made an Olympic roster that ended up featuring Paul, Jason Kidd, and Deron Williams, but it
is possible he was annoyed to have been left off the
list of over 35 finalists, which dropped days before the
Celtics won their championship and included point guards like Luke Ridnour and Kirk Hinrich. I don't know why Rondo
would hold that against Paul in particular. He may have noticed that Paul got a big contract
extension that July, but like, so did Deron Williams. Guys drafted in '05
were due for new deals. Nothing special there. And there had been no
visible beef in meetings up to this point either. Rondo made his NBA debut
in an uneventful loss against Paul and the Hornets. He got his first win against Paul in March of that championship season, and Paul actually went out of his way to praise his slightly younger opponent. So did beef exist in '08? It's possible, but it might
be one of those things where NBA insiders know more than we do. Either way, Rondo was eager
to prove critics wrong and claimed to have done so
by winning a ring in '08. None of those other young
point guards had done the same, and while Boston once
again cracked 60 wins, the Hornets regressed in 2009. Paul was healthy and effective. He missed just four games
because of a groin strain, returning right in time to
lose to the Celtics again, but injuries assured New
Orleans wouldn't come anywhere near the prior
season's playoff run. Paul was considered by
most the best point guard in the NBA, but this
fourth season backslide began a long chapter of
playoff disappointment in his career. And guess who predicted
all that disappointment right to Paul's face?
(mysterious music) Rondo, obviously. The Hornets and Celtics
met in November of '09, and things went pretty typically. Paul played great, despite
some physical defense from Rondo, but Boston
got the win yet again. The pair also picked up technicals for wrastlin' a little
bit, and whatever tension built during the game snapped afterward. The typical round of post-game
handshakes got heated when Rondo confronted Paul on the floor. The two had to be separated,
and we later found out why. Rondo had trash talked
with Paul by saying, and this is a direct quote, "I've got a ring, and
you're never gonna win one," which I'm talking to you
over nine years later and that statement
remains true to the word. Paul didn't even reach a conference final until his 13th season, but anyway, Paul didn't like that comment
and stewed for awhile. Some reports said he bickered
with Boston assistant, Tom Thibodeau, and tried to
enter the Celtics locker room, though Paul later denied all of that. Inside that locker room,
Celtics PR demanded Rondo never be asked about Paul ever. This exchange epitomized
the theme of this beef. Rondo had a ring, and he
was days away from agreeing to a big extension of his own, but he still wasn't
considered on Paul's level and some just judged
his individual success as very much a product
of the incredible team around him since '07. Paul himself wouldn't praise Rondo without that slight qualifier, and people around the league, both media and Rondo's own coach,
dismissed the comparison. But Paul's individual superiority
kept getting rubbed in. While the Celtics were
visiting New Orleans later that season, Paul
was out with a knee injury, but the Hornets trotted him out pre-game to announce he'd been
selected for Team USA again. Paul didn't end up joining that 2010 FIBA Championship roster, yet even without Paul ahead of
him, Rondo couldn't make it. He was invited to training camp in Athens, but saw limited playing
time in exhibitions, guessed where things were headed, and withdrew from the team
before they could cut him. And that was it for
Rondo's Team USA career. The 2012 Olympics happened smack
in the middle of his prime, but he had no more interest in trying to make the cut again among
higher regarded point guards. Anyway, something else
more important happened during Rondo's prime. In 2011, Rondo became an
All-Star for the first time, but his Celtics had been treading water. After winning that championship
in Rondo's second season, they had made the Finals only once, falling in seven to the vengeful Lakers. Boston wanted another title
before the window closed on their aging big three, and with LeBron James fronting an even stronger big three in Miami, it was clear the existing
roster couldn't get it done. On top of that, there
was some internal strife. Rondo and backcourt mate, Ray
Allen, weren't getting along, and Rondo sometimes
bristled at the demands of Celtics coach, Doc Rivers. So in November 2011, with
the NBA lockout about to end, Celtics GM, Danny Ainge got on the phone to discuss trading Rondo for Chris Paul. Several versions of the
trade were discussed, and the rumors reached
full-on Woj tweet status. It once again became a thing
to compare the two players, and you even had people like Shaq who'd briefly been a
Celtic before retiring arguing that Rondo was
the better point guard, citing his evidence the greater success his team had achieved. Ultimately, the trade fell through. Word at the time was
that Paul wasn't willing to commit to Boston long-term, but according to Ray
Allen's 2018 autobiography, Coach Rivers vetoed the trade because he, "couldn't do that," to his old friend, Hornets
coach, Monty Williams. I think the implication here
is that Rondo's personality might be tough for a coach to manage, which does seem to be the case, but Ray Allen might be a
slightly biased source here. After a big mess, Paul
got dealt to the Clippers. The first time Rondo
visited CP3 in his new home, the two exchanged a polite handshake with nary a sign of beef. And the feud kinda settled for awhile. Injuries ended Rondo's
time as an All-Star, as did the gradual dismantling
of the once champion Celtics. One noteworthy part of that dismantling came in summer 2013 when
Doc Rivers left Boston and took a job coaching
Chris Paul and the Clippers. Rivers, who had been a point
guard in his playing days, was as tough on Paul as he'd
been on the young Rondo, which raised comparisons again. Rivers was also the Clippers'
Senior VP of Basketball Ops for awhile and brought
in several former Celtics to complement his core
of Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan, which
will be relevant later. In December 2014, Boston
finished their demolition of the '08 Championship
team by dealing Rondo to the Dallas Mavericks. That began a chapter of Rondo's career spent bouncing from team to team, battling coaches along the way. In 2017, days after Paul
got traded to the Rockets, Rondo signed with Paul's
old team in New Orleans, now called the Pelicans. This stint brought the
beef back into focus a bit. First of all, Rondo was joining forces with his good friend, DeMarcus Cousins, who has his own beef with Paul. Second of all, Rondo broke
Paul's single game franchise assist record, which is kind of fun, and third of all, they
actually beefed a little bit in a game Rondo didn't even play. Rondo was out for rest when the Rockets visited New
Orleans on March 17th, 2018, but managed to pick up a
technical from the bench by getting into a verbal
argument with Paul. So, that was a hint the feud still lived, but as of October 20th of that year, we didn't need anymore hints. Rondo and Paul had been
battling all night, and when things got
heated, they gravitated toward one another, then they argued, and Rondo maybe spit at Paul a little bit. Then, Paul poked Rondo in the face, and then, they punched each other a little and got suspended. A lot
of attention was spent Zaprudering the footage to determine whether or not Rondo spit and
whether it was on purpose. - [Man] It clearly looked
like Rondo spit in his face. - [Narrator] And elsewhere,
people were sorting out a reported confrontation
between a Rondo family member and Jada Paul, Chris's wife. But for our purposes, the
most interesting fallout came from something Rondo
said after the fight. Quote, "Everyone wants
to believe Chris Paul "is a good guy, they don't
know he's a horrible teammate. "They don't know how he treats people." To be clear before we dig in here, Rondo has a reputation for being abrasive and at times, outright abusive. But I don't know where he gets the idea that Paul is considered an angel. Paul's own falling out with Doc Rivers was widely reported, and
he's got well-known beefs and ugly incidents in his past too. In any event, Rondo's comment about Paul immediately invited analysis from people who know both players, which because Doc was running the Clippers for
a while, is a lot of people. Jeff Green and Pierce just said the fight was a long time coming.
- The confrontation, I did see coming, I knew it was a matter-- - Why?
- I knew it was a matter of time.
- And I'm surprised that this is their first fight actually. - Others actually offered judgment. Big Baby Davis said he'd played with both, and Paul was indeed a bad teammate. Ryan Hollins said that Paul,
his former Clippers teammate, had some growing to do and went on to say Rondo was one of his
favorite teammates ever, which is a little funny
because he only played 15 games in Boston.
(mysterious music) Like Hollins definitely did
the same Getty Images search that I did and that one
photo is the only evidence that those two were ever teammates. Rockets GM, Daryl Morey,
doesn't really count here because he left the Celtics front office right before they drafted Rondo, but he chimed in to
suggest Rondo calling Paul a bad teammate was the pot
calling the kettle black. Or he was just tweeting some
nice artwork for funsies, also possible. Doc Rivers, who might be
the authority on the matter, didn't issue a ruling on
who's the worse teammate, but did reflect on the
decade of confrontation and wondered aloud how it all started. Is it really just that
Rondo coveted Paul's status as the best point guard? I don't know, Doc. It certainly adds up. Rondo
was excellent at his peak, but never quite at Paul's level, at least not according to anyone but Shaq. But it took Rondo just two years to collect the ring Paul's
chased for over a decade. Individual accolades for one
and team glory for the other could generate enough
mutual envy to fuel a beef. Of course, fuel needs ignition, so is there an incident
somewhere in the past that we don't know about? Or is it simply that both these guys are prone to acting like jerks? The Paul Rondo beef is a mysterious one, but everyone agrees,
it is old, it is real, and it is alive.
(slow piano music)
if i remember correctly, (before watching the entire video) , i remember the game in 2008 between Boston and Hornets, at the end of the game, Rondo and CP3 got into it and Rondo may have said "I have a ring, where's yours?"
EDIT: It was in the video
Unnecessary shade on Luke Ridnour.
love me sum seth rosenthal
Am I the only one on CP3's side?
This only further cements Chris Paul as one of the NBA's biggest assholes of all time.
I’m with Rondo cause Fuck the CP3
Team CP3! However, they're more alike that they would admit.
Rondo was really the 4th best player on a championship team and was sticking out his chest smh. '08 cp3 who finished 2nd in MVP voting would have been their best player
This is what i missed from 90s bball.