Monday night's contest between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz ended on a sour note. A viral clip of Oklahoma City guard Russell Westbrook shouting profanities at a fan in attendance began circulating on social media.
While the clip that went viral didn't have clear audio of what the fan was saying to Westbrook, one OKC player, Patrick Patterson, overheard the heckler asking Westbrook to “get down on your knees like [you're used] to.”
Later on Monday night, Westbrook spoke to the media to give his own insight on what really transpired, as well as his take on the NBA's current dynamics relating to player-fan interactions.
From The Athletic's Brett Dawson:
And here’s the end. pic.twitter.com/OE5nleXRXf
— Brett Dawson (@BDawsonWrites) March 12, 2019
“The realization of it is… the young man and his wife in the stands told me to ‘get down on my knees like you used to', and to me that's just completely disrespectful… I think it's racial. It's just inappropriate in the sense of there's no protection for the players.”
Westbrook elaborated, saying that there should be additional protections for NBA players in road arenas, especially when sentiments laced with underlying racial components are vocally unleashed by fans who sit in very close proximity to opposing players.
Westbrook also mentioned that he has never previously been cited for any negative off-court incidents and would never have tried to actualize the profanities he verbalized in his rebuttal to the heckling fan. Westbrook claimed he understood that many different kinds of fans come to NBA games, including fans who just want to enjoy themselves and fans who aim to verbally hurt the players on the court. Westbrook said that the incident on Monday in Salt Lake City was one in which the fan crossed the line and attacked him and his family with an evident racial tone.
Before this larger situation becomes harder to manage, the NBA may need to address how fans and players interact with each other. The league must act with urgency and care to prevent the divide between players and fans from reaching another boiling point similar to the ugly 2004 debacle between Ron Artest and a Pistons fan in Detroit.
Russell Westbrook was not involved in a scene akin to “The Malice at the Palace.” The NBA needs to make sure that that happened in Salt Lake City on Monday does not lead to an even uglier incident in the near future.
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