How often do you think Wayne Ellington, Luke Kennard, and Langston Galloway have all-out fistfights (with punching and everything) in the Pistons locker room? All of them are shooting specialists who are vying for minutes at the shooting guard position, and none of them has done much to elevate himself above his competition in terms of taking the starting spot. Ellington has been the starter since he got to Detroit, but you know those other two guys are thinking about it.
(Bruce Brown does not factor into this discussion because he is not a shooter. For simplicity’s sake, I’m also not factoring in Glenn Robinson III because I don’t know what position he plays.)
I bet these frenzied bouts of fisticuffs take place after every loss, and after some victories as well. There’s so much tension there. You can tell by the way they never high-five each other. If one of them makes a shot, the other two will just sit there and scowl unless coach is looking their way, in which case they half-heartedly clap while looking like somebody just ran over their endangered pet tortoise with an excavator.
Now the question becomes, who wins these fights? Wayne Ellington’s got the most NBA experience of the three, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to fighting experience. Luke Kennard is young and spry, likely quicker than both, and you know he’s got a lot of testosterone pumping out of his glands because of how bald he is at such a young age. Langston Galloway is the wild card because he looks like an old man; those wrinkles are the result of knowledge beyond his years. Knowledge of how to beat the crap out of people in old-fashioned brawls.
Brief alliances are formed as quickly as they are broken in the flurry of fists, and teammates throw hundred-dollar bills at them in an improvised betting pool as the fights inevitably break out. The coaching staff is powerless to stop these bloodthirsty brutes as they try to prove their suitability for more playing time by violently punching the supple flesh of their foes. Nobody suspected that the Pistons’ locker room was a haven for illegal bloodsports, but that’s what’s going on right at this very moment in the wake of the Pistons’ latest loss.