Sources: TA Fights With OJ Mayo On Team Plane

Posted by Brian Robb on Jan 5, 2011 1404016 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2011%2F01%2F05%2Fsources-ta-fights-with-oj-mayo-on-team-plane%2FSources%3A+TA+Fights+With+OJ+Mayo+On+Team+Plane2011-01-05+17%3A21%3A49Brian+Robbhttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D14040

It’s been intriguing to keeps tabs on old friend Tony Allen this year, as he exited town over the summer to get his “big opportunity” with Memphis. And despite some success so far, it appears there’s been a little situation with Allen this past Monday on the team plane. Adrian Wojnarowski gets us caught up with the full details, where it appears Mayo was the instigator via his Yahoo report

After a card game gone awry, Memphis Grizzlies teammates O.J. Mayo and Tony Allen had to be separated during a physical encounter on the team’s charter flight Monday, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Mayo owed Allen money from a card game, “Boo-Ray” and sources said Mayo became increasingly belligerent and antagonistic toward Allen when asked to settle the debt. Sources said Allen walked away from Mayo to go the restroom and returned to find Mayo continuing to berate him. Eventually, Mayo inched close to Allen, and sources said Allen hit Mayo.

“Tony warned [Mayo] to watch his mouth, and [Mayo] wouldn’t do it and just kept going off on him,” a source with knowledge of the incident told Yahoo! Sports.

Several players eventually separated the teammates, sources said. Mayo and Allen were brought into meet with Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins on Monday, and sources said the organization believed Mayo played the bigger part in escalating the encounter. Mayo missed a 110-105 victory over the Thunder on Tuesday night. Despite the team’s insistence that Mayo missed Tuesday’s game with bronchitis, sources said his absence was connected to the fight with Allen.

Yikes, this situation only makes me bring up one of my fondest/scariest TA moments in the C’s locker room involving myself, him, and old friend and former Celticshub writer Zach Lowe:

It was May 2010 and I was covering the C’s-Magic series at the Garden, casually chatting with a fellow writer in the C’s locker room prior to the start of Game 3.

Nearby was the locker of a Celtic who is no longer with the team. I don’t want to name names here, so let’s just call him Tony A. Actually, that’s too obvious let’s say TA. In any case, this individual was listening to his headphones, when out of nowhere he approached me and took a close look at my credential, before returning to his locker. Perplexed, I tried to engage the player:

BR: What’s up man? Everything cool?

TA: You write for CelticsHub eh?

BR: Yes I do (Sounding probably a bit too excited to answer the question)

TA: Is Zach Lowe here?

BR: Uhhhh….no he couldn’t make it tonight. (Zach lives in NYC) I can pass along a message to him though…..if you want.

TA: Nah that’s alright……just tell him to holler at me next time he’s here. (Puts headphones back on)

It took me a second to put it all together. Was TA really just a big fan of Zach Lowe? Maybe Tony loved Zach’s advanced stats and video breakdowns! Then, it hit me.

Earlier in the season, Zach had written an entertaining and very accurate column, listing some reasonable Dos and Donts about said player on the team that became incredibly popular with CelticsHub fans. It was written by Zach with complete genuineness, as TA was a source of promise and unending frustration for C’s fans everywhere over the course of his career in Beantown.

Yet ironically, TA had improved his play dramatically over the final few months of the year and into the postseason. The list had worked or so it seemed!

It appeared though that somehow Zach’s name and most likely the column had made their way into TA’s mailbox. The man may not have been……let’s say thrilled with it, but this was as sure of a sign as any that CelticsHub and more specifically Zach had made it. I mean hey, he had Celtic players as readers here!

After hearing this story with Mayo though…..I guess the moral of the story is….I’m glad I wasn’t Zach on that particular night.