Some of you will remember this and some won’t, but back in 1997, [PJ Carlesimo and Latrell Sprewell had an infamous run-in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFuxVcqAD-M) when Sprewell was playing for the Golden State Warriors and Carlesimo was his coach.
Brian Shaw was on the team at the time and in this interview with Paul George, he talks about everything that led up to and the altercation itself.
He says that Carlesimo is a wonderful guy off the court, but on the court and in practice, he’s a real hardass (this would be a good time to mention that there is some adult, NSFW language in this video, so keep it that in mind. There’s a lot of adult language here).
Basically, Carlesimo was pushing guys too hard and was acting like a college coach, which doesn’t really work in the NBA.
Shaw says Sprewell warned him that if he said one more thing he was going to come after him and Carlesimo said something else and Sprewell was true to his word, infamously choking his coach.
At first, Shaw says, the players were all kind of fed up with Carlesimo and let it happen, but then tried to break it up and found that getting Sprewell to let go was not easy because, as the old folks say, his blood was up.
Eventually they managed to separate them but things took a bit of a twist after it was over.
Ultimately it sort of derailed both men’s careers. Sprewell got a 68-game suspension and his reputation was permanently damaged. As for Carlesimo, he spent most of the rest of his career as a highly regarded assistant but only was head coach one more time when the Brooklyn Nets gave him their job on an interim basis.
Neither man ever really escaped the controversy.