Although the Phoenix Suns lost a critical game on the road Thursday night against the Phoenix Suns, headlines coming out of this game surrounded what happened before the contest even began. As Suns superstar forward Kevin Durant emerged from the team’s tunnel for his pregame warmups, he was serenated by the Mavericks faithful with boos. A pair of fans sitting on the court next to the team’s bench caught Durant’s attention while yelling vulgar remarks.
A pair of Mavs fans directed NSFW insults at Durant, resulting in the 14-time All-Star turning around and confronting them. After allegedly calling Durant “a b***h,” American Airlines Center security moved quickly to remove the fans from the venue. However, this is not what the Suns star wanted. He told security to let them stay, as he went back onto the court to be with his team.
Durant spoke with reporters after Thursday night’s game and offered clarity on the situation, pointing out that he had no intentions of seeing the fans removed from the game.
“My thing was like, even though you called me a b***h as I’m running out with my back turned, people usually do that, call me coward, b***h with my back turned, and it wasn’t too many people around,” Durant said, via Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. “I know you don’t mean that and I’m not going to get you kicked out because you paid your money for these tickets, you had a couple of drinks and I understand how people get, but it’s better ways to try to get my attention and talk to me other than call me a b***h out my name because you’re protected in these arenas.”
The NBA has had an issue as of late with fans yelling explicits at players to try and get some sort of response from them. While matters could have been a lot worse, Durant seemed to ease a lot of the tension that formed from the Dallas fans yelling at him in pregame warmups.
“I can’t go do nothing to you,” Durant went on to say. “It’s going to mess up everything that I’ve built up. There are better ways to talk to people. There are better ways to try to get attention, there’s better ways to indulge in a conversation with somebody besides trying to get a reaction out of them/ by calling them a b***h. I could’ve easily gotten them kicked out and maybe ban them for a few weeks, but I’d rather have them watch me play.”
Durant clearly pointed out in his postgame remarks that the two fans were not confrontational when he turned around and that the female fan looked to brush things off. Although nothing ultimately happened, this is yet another instance of fans taking things too far with players.
There have been multiple instances over the last year in which players have had enough of certain fan antics, as Los Angeles Clippers guard Russell Westbrook got into a verbal argument with Minnesota Timberwolves fans in January. Just a week or so later, Mavs star Luka Doncic had a fan ejected for heckling him during a loss.
Durant ended up finishing Thursday night’s game against Dallas with 23 points and six rebounds in 40 total minutes.
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