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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Playing an April Fools Prank on Kenyon Martin, BAD IDEA


April Fools Day was only a couple days ago but I have a feeling that many of you out there are cleaning up the mess created by some intrepid pranker.

Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin was pranked by a former Nuggets employee when he filled his car with buttered popcorn.

The only problem was that Martin didn't find that joke to be too funny.

We get more from ESPN.com:

On a night when the Denver Nuggets should have been celebrating a much-needed victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, the franchise continued to struggle with off-the-court issues when an April Fools' Day joke sparked anything but laughter.

During Denver's 109-92 victory Thursday, a former Nuggets ball boy, Laquan Johnson, got into the club's locker room, took Kenyon Martin's car keys and filled the player's Range Rover with buttered popcorn. The car had a white interior.

Martin discovered the damage as he was about to exit Denver's Pepsi Center. At the time, he had no idea who had pulled the prank. Angered, he went back to the locker room spewing profanities and threats at teammates and other members of the organization.

"That ain't no [expletive] joke," Martin said. "I'm going to find out who did it ... put my [expletive] hands on one of y'all. I'm going to put my hands on whoever did it. You better believe that. It's [expletive] personal. You better believe it."

Martin, who has missed 15 games with a torn patella tendon in his left knee, threatened to boycott the postseason if he did not find out who was responsible.

"How 'bout if I don't play in the playoffs until somebody tells me who did it," Martin said more than once.

Martin stormed in and out of the locker room several times, and a person close to him said his anger was not over the prank, but over the fact that someone could go into his pocket and take his keys during a game. Realizing the culprit had to have access to the private code for the team's gated parking lot, he assumed members of the organization either pulled the stunt or assisted in it.

"The fact that no one saw it or had anything to say about it -- not security, not the equipment manager," a person close to Martin said, explaining the player's anger. "Somebody had to see it. He was wondering how the organization let something like that happen. What if the kid had really wanted to do something evil?"

Later, Martin found out Johnson, the former ball boy who is now the driver for teammate J.R. Smith, was responsible. Johnson apologized to Martin and agreed to pay for the damage to his car.
The major lesson to learn from this is that you never play a prank on an NBA player with a rather sizeable-temper or don't prank someone who has a white interior in their car with buttered popcorn.

(Courtesy of ESPN.com)