Kevin Durant wasn’t greeted well by fans of the Dallas Mavericks ahead of their game last night, with a pair of fans calling Durant a b***h. KD took the high road and didn’t get the fans ejected despite his annoyance at the comments. Duane Rankin of The Arizona Central shared a lengthy response from KD about that incident.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s like, they don’t look at us as humans sometimes. So when you get a chance to let a person know how you feel real quick, then they’ll backtrack. See, we’re animals, we’re circus acts, we’re entertainers to them instead of real people.”
As Kevin Durant came out onto the floor for pregame warmups, a Mavs fan hollered out “b!tc#”.
Durant turned around and engaged in an extended conversation with the fans, which eventually led AAC security to tell them they had to leave. Durant noticed that, and came back over… pic.twitter.com/uo90Krs6qw
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) February 23, 2024
Durant goes on to discuss how he was put in a situation where he can’t respond within the confines of an NBA arena, but elected to not have the fans thrown out.
“I can’t go do nothing to you. 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 are better ways to indulge in a conversation with somebody besides trying to get a reaction out of them by calling them a b—-. I could’ve easily gotten them kicked out and maybe banned them for a few weeks, but I’d rather have them watch me play.”
Durant then got real about why the fans decided to talk to him like that behind his back because they know they’re protected in an NBA arena because they paid for their tickets.
“My thing was like, even though you called me a b—- as I’m running out with my back turned, people usually do that, call me coward, b—- with my back turned, and it wasn’t too many people around. 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—- out my name because you’re protected in these arenas.”
Durant was off-kilter tonight, scoring 23 points on 9-22 shooting as the Suns lost 113-123 to the Mavericks.
The Suns and Mavericks rivalry has been resulting in hurtful comments from fans of both franchises toward the other team’s superstar. Luka Doncic was heckled by Suns fans during their last game in Phoenix, but Doncic did decide to get the fan kicked out after a rough night full of trash-talk.
NBA players deal with some horrific trash-talk from anonymous faces in arenas that they’ll likely never encounter again. There are certain codes we live by and rarely would anyone walk up to another grown adult and speak to them like this, especially without knowing them.
The consequences of doing that outside an NBA arena to a stranger could be extremely rough, but fans do it to NBA players knowing that their career likely gets jeopardized if they retaliate. As fans, we should be better and more respectful of the talents that we get to watch play. Trash-talking from the stands is one thing, but insulting them seems like a generally unwise thing to do.
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