If Portland Trailblazers guard Rod Strickland wants to play in the NBA this season, he sure is going the wrong way about it. Still unsigned with any team only two weeks away from training camp, Strickland was charged with second-degree assault and a warrant was issued for his arrest after a young woman filed a criminal complaint Tuesday. The woman claims that Strickland punched her, knocking her unconscious, when she asked him to stop kicking her friend during a fracas last week outside a Maryland restaurant. Strickland's attourney denied the attack. "When that fight was over, one of the unknown suspects punched [Kristine Murphy, the young woman] in the face, causing a 1-inch cut on her chin," according to the report. John P. Valente, an attorney representing Murphy, said his client needed stitches to close the wound and was diagnosed at Prince George's Hospital Center as having a concussion. In a District Court complaint Murphy wrote that one of her coworkers was being kicked "and I don't remember anything else. All of the witnesses . . . said that Rod Strickland was the one that punched me."
