Every now and then, we witness fans at NBA games cross a line that mustn’t be crossed. Such fans tend to be kicked out immediately nowadays, but that wasn’t necessarily the case back in the day. On the Club 520 podcast, Vernon Maxwell recounted how a security guard didn’t take any action when a Portland Trail Blazers fan was making some disgusting comments regarding his stillborn daughter.
“The motherf***** was talking about my motherf****** stillborn daughter,” Maxwell said. “That was a problem. I kept telling the damn security guard, ‘Do you hear what this motherf***** white boy said about my goddamn peoples?’ The white boy behind me was talking crazy like, ‘F*** that b****. F*** that w****.’ Sitting behind the bench.
“And I was like, ‘Man, you better go straighten this motherf***** up,'” Maxwell continued. “Security guy tell me, ‘Max I can’t do that, man. He pays money.’ I said, ‘Do you hear what this man is saying?’
“Kenny (Smith) was sitting beside me and I think Tim Breaux,” Maxwell stated. “So, I got fed up with it. I got tired… I got up and when I got up, n**** I was like, ‘Man, get yo b**** a** out the way.’ I shoved that n**** about over there to the goddamn whiskey bar over there.
“I walked patiently and I slapped the s*** outta him,” Maxwell added. “And it wasn’t worth it. The money… I was like, ‘Goddamn, I ain’t want do him like that.'”
This incident took place on Feb. 6, 1995, and Maxwell paid a heavy price for hitting that fan. He was suspended for 10 games and was fined $20,000. With the guard earning $20,700 per game, the hit cost him over $220,000 in total. You can check out the incident below.
While Maxwell shouldn’t have gone and hit that fan, you can understand why he felt the need to take matters into his own hands. Not many individuals would have been able to keep their cool if someone was making comments along those lines about their stillborn daughter and security wasn’t doing anything about it.
As for that fan, named Steve George, he completely denied saying anything of that sort. In his first public comments, George claimed that Maxwell was trying to paint himself as the victim.
“I would like to have an apology from Vernon Maxwell,” George said. “I think it’s wrong for him to turn this around to where I am no longer the victim and he’s making himself out to be the victim. “He chose to come up and do what he did and he’s chosen to say to the press these things that are totally untrue.”
George added that he had no idea that Maxwell had a daughter who had been stillborn. He revealed he had two kids himself and couldn’t think of anything worse than losing a child.
George also denied making any racist remarks toward Maxwell and ended up suing him and the Houston Rockets for $4.5 million. The lawsuit was eventually settled off-court.
Fortunately, players these days are not put in the position that Maxwell claims he found himself in. We have seen the likes of LeBron James and Russell Westbrook ask for disrespectful fans to be kicked out and those requests are granted immediately, as they should be.
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