Signing the last autograph for the last patient fan, Kyle Anderson waved goodbye to the crowd and headed to the locker room, eager to get out of his sweaty jersey. Enough time had passed since the end of the game that the sting of the loss wasn’t so great. And, as vain as it was, there was some pride lurking there behind the disappointment. Pride at having gotten his first career triple-double.
When he opened the door the locker room, he was met with chaos. And not the good kind of chaos either.
“COACH SAID THEY WANTED TO TRADE YOU BUT NOBODY WOULD TAKE YOU!” Garrett Temple yelled, apparently directing his harsh words at Omri Casspi, who was being restrained by three other teammates. “Maybe I’ll kick your ass so hard we’ll get an injury exception and sign somebody who can actually play!”
This enraged Omri to the point that he, with a sudden burst of energy, broke free from the hands holding him back and charged full-speed at Garrett. Screaming with rage, he tried to dive-tackle him, but Garrett stepped out of the way, and Omri instead tackled Yuta Watanabe, who had been sitting at his locker trying to ignore the whole confrontation.
Kyle Anderson ran over to calm down Yuta before he involved himself in the fight. “Calm down everybody. I just got a triple-double. Can’t we celebrate that?”
“Shut up Kyle, nobody wants to hear you talk or see your disgustingly large forehead,” Garrett spat.
“Ten assists is more than you’ve gotten in your whole career,” Omri retorted from where he was lying on the floor. “Besides, I bet Kyle could kick your ass, couldn’t you, Kyle?”
Kyle backed away from the two angry players. “I don’t know about th-” he began, but his words were interrupted by Garrett running at him with fists flying. Kyle did the only thing he could think of to do, and swung his closed hand right at Garrett’s face, where it connected with a sickening crunch.
“Yeah, you kicked his ass good,” Omri commented as Kyle looked at his own fist, then at Garrett’s unconscious body on the locker room floor, and then back at his fist. “Told you.” Omri was about to say more, but instead of words, screams came from his mouth as Yuta, who had climbed on top of his locker, body-slammed him with the full weight of his body. Bleeding from the head, Omri tussled with Yuta while the two screamed insensitive racial slurs at each other.
Meanwhile, somebody had taken issue with Kyle’s clean knockout of Garrett, and was pummeling his back and neck with punches. “Your triple-double sucked, asshole,” said the voice of Shelvin Mack. “Stop making me look bad with your assists, you slow-ass bitch.”
Kyle didn’t want to fight another player, so he protected himself with his arms and called out, “Marc, could you get this guy to stop?” But when he looked over to where Marc Gasol had been standing as an apparent peacekeeper, he saw Marc with Mike Conley in an inescapable headlock.
“I’m the face of the franchise. You’re just a nobody,” Marc was growling as Mike slipped out of consciousness. To the side of them, Jaren Jackson was curled into a ball on the floor, crying and begging for everybody to stop fighting. Tired of the fists hitting him. Kyle swiftly turned around and kneed Shelvin in the crotch before he could react. For good measure, he kneed him in the face as he went to the ground; Shelvin’s nose was obviously broken as blood spurted from it.
Just then, J.B. Bickerstaff ran in wearing full riot gear. It wasn’t the first time that protective armor had to be donned by the coaching staff just to enter their own locker room. He dropped a few tear gas canisters and ran back out without saying a word to anybody. With the choking caustic gas filling the air, the unruly players scattered, except for the ones that had been knocked unconscious by the fighting.
“At least I got a triple-double” Kyle thought to himself as he rubbed his burning eyes and fled down the hallway.