We aren't family

Crazy NBA players plus small-town paper equals entertaining reading.

Randolph hit with second lawsuit: A $300,000 lawsuit filed last month against Portland Trail Blazers forward Zach Randolph and former teammate Qyntel Woods claims that the two players and others assaulted and harassed a Northeast Portland man for more than two years, calling him a “snitch” and a “bitch dog” in connection with dogfighting allegations against Woods.

Filed Oct. 13 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, the lawsuit is the first of two filed against Randolph within a month, the other being a $2 million sexual assault suit filed against him this week.

Together the lawsuits — taken with other publicly available information — paint a picture of the “gangsta” ethic seemingly adopted by Randolph, a West Linn resident, and his self-described “Hoop Family.”

Both lawsuits use the term “Hoop Family” or some version of it to describe a group of people Randolph surrounds himself with and who seem to feed off the association.

Among those people, the Oct. 13 lawsuit claims, are two other defendants, one identified only as “DeeMo” and another named Dontay Stidum, who allegedly threatened the Northeast Portland man’s life.

In another incident alleged in the lawsuit, Randolph himself confronted the plaintiff, Robert Bacote, 32, at Geneva’s Shear Perfection, a Northeast Portland hair salon, telling Bacote he would get “handled.”

“Where I come from we don’t [expletive] with snitches!” Randolph said, according to the lawsuit.

On a later occasion, at the downtown nightclub Vue, since closed, Randolph walked up to Bacote in the VIP room and started calling him a snitch again, loud enough so others could hear, according to the lawsuit.

Bacote asked Randolph to please not say that so loud with so many other people around. Then Bacote tried to leave.

“Randolph then struck the plaintiff in the chest,” according to the lawsuit. “Plaintiff immediately left the club, bruised and feeling humiliated.” ...

Bacote’s lawyer, Sean Hartfield, said his client was a rapper and singer who moved in some of the same circles as the Blazers players because he tried to book gigs at some of the same clubs where they hung out. Bacote performs on occasion under the name Mackin’ Rob.

“It’s a small community for those kinds of people,” Hartfield said. “Rappers and ballers (basketball players) and wannabe rappers and wannabe ballers. But it all revolves around the ballers because that’s where the women are.” ...

The lawsuit makes mention of Woods also berating Bacote in public and beating him outside the Roseland Theater in late 2004 — with Randolph present, encouraging Woods and others to beat him down, shouting, “Get him, dog. Get him,” according to the lawsuit.

There are many other moments of hilarity in the article, including a reference to 'rump-shaking women.'

Uncredited photo of Zach Randolph found in various places online.