Golden State Warriors All Star guard Latrell Sprewell choked his head coach P.J. Carlesimo after a heated exchange during practice.
At 1-13, the Golden State Warriors were the worst team in the NBA and with the trading deadline approaching, they were shopping Sprewell from team to team. Meanwhile, Carlesimo's aggressive coaching style, which had worked so well for him in Portland, was no longer successful and had in fact created a rift in the Warriors locker room. P.J. and Sprewell wouldn't have been together much longer anyway, but in one of the most infamous episodes in the NBA, the tension between them culminated before either could be moved.
Carlesimo and company were practicing on an off day when it suddenly got hostile. Not pleased with the dishing he was doing, Carlesimo yelled at Sprewell to make "crisper passes", in turn Sprewell told him he wasn't in the mood for it and threatened to kill him. Sprewell lost it. In a blind fit of rage, he wrestled his coach to the ground and wrapped his hands around his neck for 15 seconds. After being restrained by stunned onlookers, he left the scene, only to return to the facility 20 minutes later to take another swing at him. Teammates once again got in the way and prevented him from causing serious injury; Carlesimo walked away with a red scar on his throat.
"It was all about the respect factor with me," Sprewell said. "It was all about P.J. disrespecting me as a man. You don't talk to people the way that P.J. talked to me. To have my pride and my respect and my manhood means more than any dollar amount."
Tensions had been boiling between the two. Three weeks earlier, Carlesimo yanked Sprewell from a game against the Los Angeles Lakers, calling him a joke, because Sprewell was laughing in the huddle during a timeout. The Lakers held a big lead at the time.
The Warriors initially terminated Sprewell’s contract, and his year-long suspension was the longest ever handed out by the NBA. After Sprewell pushed for arbitration, the sentence was later reduced to 68 games, a gap that still cost Sprewell some $6 million in wages. After Sprewell was reinstated, Golden State traded him to the New York Knicks, where he resumed his career in 1999 and was embraced by the fans as a rebellious antihero. Carlesimo was fired by Golden State early in the 1999 season after his team limped to a 6-21 start.
Sprewell's 68-game suspension is 2nd longest in NBA History, behind only Ron Artest's 86-game suspension in 2004-05.
