The NBA accused Rondo of spitting on Chris Paul, but Rondo has come out publicly to deny he was the spitter.
Was there a second spitter, was it an accident or is Paul lying?
Here is what Rondo had to say.
“This is the only time I’m going to address this,” Rondo told ESPN on Tuesday. “I had a mouthpiece in my mouth and I was exasperated because I was about to tell him to ‘get the [expletive] out of here.’
“Look at my body language [in the video]. My hands on my hips. I turn away for a second. Look at Eric [Gordon] and Melo [Carmelo Anthony] in the video. If they saw me spit, they would have turned their face up or something. They had no reaction.”
“Of course, the NBA went with his side because I got three games and he got two,” Rondo told ESPN. “Everyone wants to believe Chris Paul is a good guy. They don’t know he’s a horrible teammate. They don’t know how he treats people. Look at what he did last year when he was in LA; trying to get to the Clippers locker room. They don’t want to believe he’s capable of taunting and igniting an incident.
” … He comes out and says I spit and the media sides with that.”
“Y’all are playing me with these tricks or these mind games, tampering with the evidence,” Rondo told ESPN on Tuesday. “Ain’t no way that I intentionally spit on you with my body language the way it was.
“One, if I spit on you, bottom line, there is not going to be no finger-pointing. If you felt that I just spit on you, then all bets are off. Two, look at my body language. If I spit on you on purpose, I’m going to be ready for a man to swing on me. You ain’t going to have my hands on my hip and my head look away at someone if I spit on them. After the [expletive] goes down, within 30 seconds, you run and tell the sideline reporters that I spit on you? If I spit on you, you are trying to get to me. You not trying to make up a story so you can look like a good guy. It makes no sense to me.
“I was going to let it rest. I wasn’t going to say much. But now I have kids and I teach my kids to speak up for themselves and don’t let the world tell their story.”
“It’s bigger than basketball now, for you all, for the league, that side over there trying to spin this like … this whole spitgate,” Rondo told ESPN on Tuesday. “Trying to blame me without being accountable for anything he did to provoke the situation.”
Chris Paul is the President of the NBAPA and he did immediately run to the media about the spitting story. While the initial videos didn’t show anything, a random video appeared later showing spit, but no one could confirm where it came from and if it had been doctored.
Flip the page for the full fight video and alleged spitting evidence.