No less than three Utah Jazz fans were handed lifetime bans for heckling the family of Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant in their Game 2 matchup on Wednesday. Morant himself has called out the fans in question while also taking a shot at the Utah fanbase for their reputation of being overly rowdy during home games.
According to Morant, he's well aware of the type of fans the Jazz have:
“I mean, I have heard about Utah before, so I invited a lot of people, double digits, for sure,” said the Grizzlies star, via Jay Drew of the Deseret News.
It would be unfair to the residents of Utah to make a sweeping statement that all Jazz fans act inappropriately during games. It could very well be just a handful of fans that act this way, and to generalize the entire fanbase would be wrong. However, Morant's comments aren't completely surprising here especially considering how it was his own family that was verbally and racially abused during the game.
This scandal is not an isolated incident for Jazz fans as well. A few years back, Russell Westbrook was involved in an infamous on-court spat with a couple of Utah home fans that eventually led to a $100 million lawsuit. The NBA slapped Russ with a $25,000 fine while the fans were also given lifetime bans.
Grizzlies big man Jonas Valanciunas echoed Morant's criticism of the fans, saying how this type of behavior has no room in the NBA:
“About the fan treatment, I mean, this is unacceptable,” Valanciunas said. “That’s terrible. I mean, especially families and everybody. I don’t know what to say. This is tough to see and one thing I hope is our fans are going to be different because we are above that and we gonna treat everybody the same and be nice to opposite team, too.
“We can cheer for our team and support our team, but everybody is equal and everybody deserves to be treated equally.”
The Grizzlies and the Jazz are in the midst of a tremendous series that has emerged as one of the exciting matchups in the first round. It's a shame that it has been mired by such an ugly and classless incident.
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