I guess I don’t see any particular reason to disbelieve them, but the following postgame quotes, about the shouting match Los Angeles Lakers teammates Isaiah Thomas and Julius Randle had on the sideline during last night’s loss to the Golden State Warriors, are still cracking me up.
First, here’s the shouting match:
And here are the quotes about why, actually, it ruled. Via ESPN:
“I didn’t see what it was about; I like it though,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said. “I told them afterward, I love it. As long as they’re open-minded and whatever they were arguing about, they get it figured out. We have been trying to get our guys to talk [on defense] all year long and if it is a heated conversation, that means it is two people that are passionate about something and we will take that on our team any day.”
“Ah, man. It was great, honestly,” Randle explained when asked what happened. “We expect a lot out of each other and it was just communicating, man. We want to win, we expect to win these games and we expect each other to play at a certain level, so it was just us being teammates. There’s nobody I’d rather go to war with than IT. So it’s nothing personal, we’re just trying to get the best out of each other and win the game.”
“Nothing,” Thomas said when asked what happened with Randle. “Just two basketball players competing. That’s all it was. Happy to be yelling. ... We want the best for each other, we just want to win. We’re two leaders on the team that we’re competing on and it was a misunderstanding at one point and we talked about it and we’re good. As teammates should.”
Hell yeah. Love to shout and gesticulate at my coworkers until we have to be pulled apart and separated. It’s how you know things are harmonious in the workplace. Most people don’t know this, but Tom Ley and I meet at regular intervals in rural Pennsylvania for hella nutritive knife fights. Because we are good colleagues.
Sports are weird.