It was a rough night for Russell Westbrook in Philadelphia on Wednesday. The Wizards guard left the blowout loss in the fourth quarter after injuring his right ankle, then had popcorn dumped on him by fan as he limped toward the locker room. Addressing the incident after the game, Westbrook called on the NBA to better protect its players with fans now permitted back in arenas, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN writes.
“To be completely honest, this s–t is getting out of hand, especially for me. The amount of disrespect, the amount of fans just doing whatever the f–k they want to do — it’s just out of pocket,” Westbrook said. “There are certain things that cross the line. Any other setting … a guy were to come up on the street and pour popcorn on my head, you know what happens. … In these arenas, you got to start protecting the players. We’ll see what the NBA does.”
The Sixers announced today in a press release that the fan who poured popcorn on Westbrook has had his season ticket membership revoked and will be banned indefinitely from attending events at Wells Fargo Center. While that’s a good first step, it’ll be interesting to see if the league takes any further action.
LeBron James (via Twitter) echoed Westbrook’s call for the NBA to protect its players, and the incident in Philadelphia isn’t the only one involving fans this week. A Knick fan appeared to spit on Hawks guard Trae Young on Wednesday (link via Bleacher Report), and Jason Quick of The Athletic notes (via Twitter) that multiple Trail Blazers players took issue with some Nuggets fans as the team was leaving the court in Game 2.
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- Westbrook’s impressive play in the second half of the season was crucial in propelling the Wizards into the playoffs, but the team will need more from him in this series in order to have a chance at upsetting Philadelphia, writes Candace Buckner of The Washington Post. First and foremost, the Wizards will need Westbrook healthy — his status remain up in the air after Wednesday’s ankle injury.
- Hawks head coach Nate McMillan found his rotation decisions under the spotlight following Wednesday’s loss, but he said he was happy with his game plan, per Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. “Our starters played 35-plus minutes. That’s a lot of minutes for those guys,” McMillan said. “Trae plays 35. Bogi (Bogdan Bogdanovic) plays 35. Clint (Capela) is at 36. That’s a lot of minutes for starters. … I thought we got a little gassed in that first half. I think we have to give those guys a little breather. They’re not going to be able to play 40-48 minutes.”
- Heat president of basketball operations Pat Riley was aware that his club probably needed more firepower to have a chance to return to the NBA Finals this year, says Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. However, Riley was unable to land Kyle Lowry at the deadline and his acquisition of Victor Oladipo didn’t work out, which could contribute to an early postseason exit for the defending Eastern champs.
- With the Heat trailing the Bucks 2-0, Anthony Chiang and Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald explore whether a frontcourt pairing of Bam Adebayo and second-half addition Dewayne Dedmon might be a viable solution to counter Milwaukee’s size.
Popcorn hoits!
Poor Russ, what a horrible experience he suffered through. He will need to attend PTSD meetings for the rest of his life to cope with such an ordeal.
WTF is wrong with ppl? You spit on players and dump popcorn on them? You know the player can’t do anything but take it so it has to be one of the most spineless chickensh!t thing’s you can do. I mean, spitting on someone is gross and classless (way to stick to type NY) but you spit on a professional athlete at a sporting event that you are just a spectator for and you do this in the middle of a pandemic….smh
The lack of fear over physical repercussions is why the cowards do it. I’m not quite sure how they solve it because you can’t just turn players loose on fans, but there needs to be stronger punishment than ticket loss. Maybe you criminally prosecute these people, let them spend some time in jail?
Malice at the palace was the best day in NBA history.
Ever see that video from the 70s when the hockey players climbed over the glass and into the stands to fight with fans? Pretty shocking as well.
link to youtu.be
That’s exactly what Westbrook was about to do last night if the five security guards around him didn’t hold him back. He’s a ticking time bomb.
huh? “he’s a ticking time bomb”? how? someone assaulted him, what reaction do you see as proportionate?
What was Westbrook going to do? He probably would have only connected on 20% of his punch attempts
lol well done
You really going to defend this. Fans will get theirs o e day. Just like internet tough guys. You listening Marty
I don’t think this terrible behavior is a sports issue. I think it’s a general issue at large. Fans have gotten more and more disrespectful when it comes to these things like what happened with Westbrook and Young. You can see dozens of videos of politicians and political figures having milkshakes thrown at them by people who don’t like them. It’s like twitter behavior of being toxic and disrespectful is appearing in real life now. There needs to be at least a basic level respect human beings have for each other that doesn’t seem to be happening lately.
That fake social media courage is creeping into the arenas… and they know there’s the “security barriers” that will keep them safe from the players. Like Westbrook said, they wouldn’t do it on the street.
It’s so insane that all the johnny twitter fingers out there really do think NBA players are so soft that they could step to them, when 100% of NBA players could easily destroy like 99.9% of all American men in a 1-on-1 fight. These guys all bench more than us, they are more fitter than us, they are literally pro athletes, its their job to be in fighting shape.
KD’s legs might look skinny and idiots might hate him for not being 1-team player, but he will absolutely annihilate any of us in a fight, even post-injury. Twitter’s existence proved that everyone doesn’t actually deserve a voice, as most people are idiots and morons who don’t live in reality.
A fan throwing popcorn on Westbrook is definitely crossing the line. He’s had run ins with fans in the past. Had a fan ejected and banned for life for a verbal altercation… I think that’s soft
Obviously no one should be getting hit with objects but I also don’t have a ton of sympathy for players getting things said to them, they’re getting paid millions, it comes with the territory fans are very passionate.
“Fans” are savages who act like 2 year olds and deserve to be banned if they cant act right in public. We definitely need to ban booze from pro sports events in this country, because the general population has proven it cant handle it anymore.
I can tell it wont matter what Russell did, you have no respect for any athlete, period. All your personal interaction with pro sports is hate-based. “Passionate fans” are psychopaths who need to be in prison for ruinng sports for everyone else.
You sound like a fun person to be around. Why stop at banning alcohol from sporting events? Why not just ban it in general, along with any substance that makes you not sober.
I don’t hate athletes.. I was one myself. I just simply said I don’t have much sympathy for athletes getting paid millions getting ‘yelled’ at. Should the Knicks ban every fan that chanted “Trae is balding” last night?
I don’t think he’s arguing the point of fans yelling at players. But being spit on and getting things thrown on them are totally uncalled for and deserve punishment.
RyanO… So, the more money a player makes, the more derogatory you can be towards him/her in your language? (or just “him”)
Buying a ticket doesn’t give you the right to do or say just ANYthing you want to a player, coach….
In my opinion yes. Not saying it’s right for fans to do so, and I wouldn’t say more money=more harassment. But playing professional sports comes with territory of potential foul language being directed your way. I think the players should be able to say stuff back.
Again not saying it’s right, but they are professionals and no one is forcing them to play. Regular jobs deal with rude/terrible people all the time. Food service, airlines just to name a few and they get paid a minute percentage of pro athletes.
My whole point here is I don’t think we should conflate language with literally throwing stuff. I think they’re two distinct actions and one deserves punishment whereas the other I don’t think does.
Within the confines of good taste I would agree that fans should not be kicked out for taunting, you can be respectful and still annoying.
So, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that NBA players are getting paid millions of dollars to be treated the way we all agree that no one should be treated?
What does the millions have to do with any of this? How much would they have to earn for you to sympathize with someone who is humiliated in this way? Half a million? One hundred thousand? $14.50?
With the amount of fights amongst fans at even partially-closed sporting events in America and now with it spilling onto players, we are proving we can’t be in public with each other anymore. Everyone in America needs to complete a course on being a decent human being again.
im a New York guy and a die hard Knicks fan, all of this stuff is terrible and should not happen. these losers gotta stop doing this s**t to players its totally not right. its embarrassing, nothing but cowards. Smh
The answer to this problem is really simple: Any franchise that allows fans to spit at, harass, dumb popcorn on, or otherwise interfere with the visiting team forfeits the day’s game receipts to the league. Do that, and every franchise will have this problem licked in about 2 weeks.
But the sad reality is that *the franchises like things the way they are.* They like overserving. They like putting the fans right next to the action and charging a premium for being so close. They like ginning up the fans in the stands so they can sell tickets for more money. etc.
This problem exists because the franchises want to extract every dollar from the crowd.
I subscribe to the cigarette theory: anyone who throws something at a player has to eat a carton of that thing, then see how much they like it.
Dump popcorn on Russell Westbrook? You’re gonna be eating popcorn until you’ve learned your lesson. Let’s see if you ever order popcorn again…
anyone who attacks a player in this manner should be subject to a match in the ring with the player. similar to a recent suggestion on MLBTR where a hit batter gets to fight the pitcher who hit him if it was a purpose pitch.
If Pat Riley was looking for more firepower he may have thought about the rebounding power the Heat were losing by trading Olynyk for an absolute dud.Olynyk was not a headliner but clearly he meant more to the Heat than meets the eye