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Former Houston Rockets guard tells story of time he nearly stabbed Hakeem Olajuwon

James Harden and Chris Paul

Getting into fisticuffs with a team-mate behind the scenes is not a rarity in the NBA, but a legitimate crime scene certainly is.

Vernon Maxwell, also known as 'Mad Max', told Gilbert Arenas a pretty interesting story on his 'No Chill' podcast.
Maxwell was with the Houston Rockets between 1990-1995 and won two championships, one in 1994 and one in 1995, with Michael Jordan out of the league for one season and rusty after making a comeback for the other.
It would be fair to say the best player the former shooting guard played with was Hakeem Olajuwon.
The big center is one of the greatest players in NBA history and arguably the best defender of all time.
'The Dream' played 17 years in Houston before a forgettable stint with the Toronto Raptors and averaged 21.8 PPG, 11.1 RPG and 3.1 BPG in his career. Not too shabby.
He was league MVP in '94, when he won his first title, a 12-time All-Star, two-time Finals MVP, six-time All-NBA First Team, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and a lot more.
In fact, he is one of three to win DPOY, MVP and FMVP in their career and the only player to win all three in a single season.
However, Olajuwon was nearly involved in one of the most shocking incidents in NBA history, and had it not been for police intervention, he could have been stabbed by a teammate at half-time of a game.
Maxwell revealed to Arenas that he was close to stabbing Olajuwon with a piece of glass after the Nigerian-born center slapped him so hard that he 'fell off his chair'.

Mad Max was not happy with his team-mate after a disappointing opening half, and he let him know about it.

"I probably got four, five points," Maxwell said (quotes via the Daily Mail). "I'm spitting on the floor.
"I'm like: 'This some bulls***, y'all mother***ers… Give up that g*****n rock. Pass that b****.
"I said, 'God damn, this motherf***er slapped the s*** out of me,'' Maxwell said. "[Olajuwon's] got these hard-a** hands… Motherf****er could cut a piece of meat with those hands.
"That motherf***er hit me so hard, man, [he] knocked me out the chair."
Maxwell threw a chair at Olajuwon after he was struck by him.
After this, police entered the locker room and went as far as to draw their guns, and it's a good job they did, otherwise Maxwell could have done something very regrettable in the spur of the moment.
"I jumped up, grabbed my chair, and threw it at [that] motherf***er, bust the glass in the locker room." Maxwell explained.
"Everybody running out. Police come in with the guns drawn, like 'what the hell goin' on in here?'"
Maxwell said, he would have picked up a shard of glass to "chase Dream and stab the s**t out of him."
The ex-guard says Olajuwon changed as a teammate after recommitting himself to Islam later on in his career.
"After that, [Hakeem] became Muslim," he said. "He was so quiet, so humble, so, [he] wanted me to become Muslim. I couldn't do it. But, he was a great teammate after that."
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