August 16, (THEWILL) – The Sacramento Kings forward, Chimezie Metu, reacted by throwing a punch at Mavericks forward Eugene Omoruyi in the fourth quarter of an 86-70 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday and earned both players an ejection at the Cox Pavilion of their Las Vegas Summer League game.
Both apparently Nigerian-born, Chimezie derives his name from the Igbo South-East and Omoruyi from Edo South-South.
There were about three minutes left in the game when Metu reacted to Omoruyi knocking him to the floor as he was driving to the basket. The Kings’ forward quickly got back to his feet and lashed out at Omoruyi’s face before players from both teams stepped in to hold them apart before it got worse.
THEWILL recalls that Metu had injured his wrist from a previous dangerous play last season by centre Jonas Valanciunas of the Memphis Grizzlies. He received an automatic ejection for punching Omoruyi but the latter also got ejected after a video review of his foul on Metu was upgraded to a flagrant foul type 2.
Bobby Jackson, the coach for Kings, commented on the foul post-match by admitting that Omoruyi’s reaction was “probably” a dirty play, and insisted that “we don’t want that to ever happen” before explaining how he addressed the situation with Metu and the rest of the team internally.
Jackson said he told them: “Just be smart, always protect yourself and just understand what this league kind of consists of and not put yourself in those types of situations. Again, I’m their coach, I’m going to support any and everything my players do, and I think that’s what normal organizations and teams do.
“They’re going to support their player. Did we like what Metu did? No. But at the end of the day we’ve got to have his back and we’ve got to support him.”
Metu’s teammate Louis King, who led the Kings with 18 points, also offered his view of the altercation after the match: “I felt like it was just a bad foul on the other team and (Metu) took his anger out on it. I believe he should have taken a different approach, but sometimes people get in the moment and you can’t really stop their intensity.”
Before he was ejected, Metu had seven points, seven rebounds, three steals, two blocked shots and two steals for the Kings. The finish result meant Kings remained unbeaten in summer league play.
On the other hand, Omoruyi finished with seven points and five rebounds for the Mavericks.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
