Imagine being at your desk inside your place of employment. You’re dressed appropriately, going about your business with colleagues and trying to maximize the day. Whatever is going on in your personal life, you put that aside to focus on your task at hand.
Then imagine having someone yell at you from near and far, making it personal and berating your skills even though you are one of only 450 people in the world to qualify for this level of employment.
Advertisement
Imagine someone you don’t even know making comments about the way you look, your mom, spouse and family — or even questioning your manhood.
That’s what it’s like on a nightly basis for NBA players. They sign up to play basketball on the greatest stage, yet this unwanted annoyance comes with the territory.
“Yeah, you experience it,” said Pacers point guard Darren Collison. He’s played for five franchises in 10 seasons and says he’s heard it everywhere. “It’s terrible. You just want fans to come to the games and enjoy themselves.”
At all games around the league, there are security staff members along with ushers, typically more than a dozen in all, lining the court during timeouts and replay reviews. They don’t face the court, instead keeping their eyes glued to the stands.
“Oh yes, it’s gotten worse over the last year or two,” a senior member of ESG Security at Pacers games said. “I have to talk to someone almost every night.”
A longtime Pacers usher “wholeheartedly believes that” fan behavior has gotten much worse over the last few years. In her 30 years of doing her job, she says it’s always occurred but not at this disrespectful level that goes beyond playfulness.
An anonymous player said he believes fans and interaction with fans is the No. 1 issue with the league this season. Not friction with officials, super teams or the one-and-done rule.
“It’s beginning to get to an all-time high and it’s definitely something that has to be addressed,” Pacers veteran Thad Young said. “I think they have been addressing it — the arenas, the teams and the players, we’ve all been addressing it.”
Young entered the league back in 2007 and has seen just about everything in a dozen years as a pro, with stops in Philadelphia, Minnesota, Brooklyn and Indiana.
“I remember when I was in Brooklyn, a fan called me a b-word. And he was an Indiana fan,” Young said with a big smile. “I had to walk up to him and tell him, ‘I can be many things, but one thing you’re not going to call me is the b-word.’
Advertisement
“I was ready to do more than just say some words to him, but I restrained myself and understood that I was at work and I was doing what I was supposed to be doing — which was playing basketball. You just have to ignore things.
“But some things can’t be ignored, like when people start to be disrespectful and talk about your family. At the end of the day, you’re supposed to come and watch the game, enjoy the game and be entertained. We’re entertainers and we’re out there doing the best job we can.”
Heckling is nothing new for these players when they get to the league, the level only intensifies.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni exchanges banter with a courtside fan in Minneapolis this season. (Brad Rempel / USA Today Sports)
“We’ve experienced that since little league basketball where people are heckling, making comments to you out on the floor,” said Pacers coach Nate McMillan, who played 12 seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics. “You get that all the time. Our fans are close to us, that’s just part of the game. Sometimes guys respond to it, most of the time you don’t.”
Social media has inevitably led to worse conditions; it certainly is a huge contributing factor both on and off the court.
“I think it’s bad because people just come in and say whatever the hell they want,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said. “We live in a day and age of social media where people think they know your life and they know you. But they know more about us than fans ever have because of social media, but in saying that, you don’t know me. And yet people come and just talk crazy like they do and it’s bullshit.
“I don’t listen. It’s just an unfortunate situation. It’s just an entire systematic failure because you look at sports in Europe or here or whatever, and fans think that’s OK.”
Bad behavior has become more prevalent and obvious because of smartphones. Everyone has a camera in their pocket so the audience is no longer limited. One recording can go viral in minutes.
Advertisement
“We didn’t have the stuff when I first came into the league so the interaction between a fan or an owner wouldn’t go viral,” Young said. “It would just be that at that game at that point in time and security would handle it.
“You can heckle a player, but let’s have fun with it. Like, ‘Russ, you suck,’ and then smile at him. You see what I’m saying? I’ve had fans do that to me.”
Young is referring to Russell Westbrook, the star of the Thunder, because of his very public moment this season with a Jazz fan who was beyond disrespectful and has since been banned for life from Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City.
Westbrook clearly crossed a line, but it was after he was provoked by a nearby couple who told him “to get down on your knees like you used to.”
Thunder guard Russell Westbrook gestures to a fan during a recent game in New Orleans. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
“To me, that’s just completely disrespectful,” Westbrook said after the game on March 11. “I think it’s racial, and I think it’s inappropriate in the sense that there’s no protection for the players.”
When the Pacers played in Philadelphia on March 10, just one day earlier, a couple of 76ers fans in the second row opposite the team’s bench had some words for Wesley Matthews. During a stoppage in play when Matthews was nearby, they had an exchange that appeared to be good old-fashioned trash talk.
“You got to remind yourself of where you are and the situation that you’re in,” Matthews said. “At the same time, we’re humans too. The same thing that they may say because we’re on the court, they wouldn’t say to our faces. I think that’s got to be the job of the arena, the job of the ushers and obviously some onus on the players. If stuff gets crazy, we got to let the people know.
“We’re just ultra-competitive, a lot of us are alphas and we like to handle things in a different way. We’d like to handle things in a way that we aren’t allowed to handle it and as adults shouldn’t handle it. There’s definitely playful banter back and forth, but there are definitely lines that get crossed often.”
Advertisement
That sounds good in theory, but the tendency is for these guys to handle it on their own. An attack is very personal and these “alphas” aren’t used to calling on others to handle their business.
Pacers center Myles Turner also heard it from some 76ers fans during a visit this season. He did his best to let it go in one ear and out the other, but his frustration boiled over in the second quarter. He picked up a foul and flipped off those fans on his way to the bench.
“Heat of the moment, my emotions got the best of me right there,” he tweeted immediately after the game. “Gotta respect fan bases in every city! My apologies Philly Fans, looking forward to coming back!”
Turner was fined $15,000 by the NBA the following day. Fans, on the other hand, are occasionally warned but rarely face any penalty. Meanwhile, it can have an impact on the court. Collison, for example, has seen a former teammate struggle because it got to him.
“It’s tough, man, because people don’t understand that you’re trying to focus on the game but every now and then, there’s a fan that talks about your family or something so personal,” he said. “People don’t understand that we’ve been with hecklers our entire lives. Even when we were in high school, we were the best players in our community and you had fans who say something.
“When it gets to an extreme, personal situation, that’s when it’s really tough. It’s tough for a player because you can’t defend yourself the way you want to. A lot of NBA players are good people and all we want to do is just play basketball.”
It should stop because it’s never been OK to target a player or official and cross the line. And whatever happened to creativity in good-natured chants? Those are entertaining. The Pacers’ fan sections do a wonderful job of barking chants in unison that opponents hear and frequently acknowledge.
Advertisement
Recently they chanted, “Hide your cellphones” to Nets guard D’Angelo Russell, who as a rookie for the Lakers recorded video of a teammate discussing his unfaithfulness in marriage. Russell hit both foul shots, his team won the game and clinched a playoff spot for the first time in four seasons.
That’s the ultimate response from a player.
Pacers fans chanted “Hide your cellphones!” and D-Lo egged them on pic.twitter.com/bZN2SzIBT8
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 7, 2019
“I usually give it right back,” admitted Matthews, who isn’t one to back down from anyone or anything. “At the end of the day, I’m a man too. Yeah, I play basketball, I’m on this court but I’m a man at the same time.
“If you were to say something like that to me while I’m with my daughter or family or something like that, it would be handled in a certain way. That’s just how I was raised; my grandma would whoop my ass if I let somebody disrespect me and didn’t do anything about it.”
From a player’s perspective, Young raised valid points in terms of what fans should remember about players. It goes for any level of competition.
“Some people are not as talented as other individuals; some people don’t have it that night; some people may be going through something and you don’t know that,” he said.
It’s more than just players who hear it. They’re just the ones who are able to publicly express their feelings about it. NBA officials probably get it worse, on the receiving end of a much more of a unified effort whereas it might be one fan targeting one player. An entire arena can quickly turn against those three individuals on the floor and out comes the “Refs you suck!” chant.
The game, however, is stronger than ever because of the fans, because of their insatiable appetite for better teams, for more star players, for more transactions … and for more drama. Without fans, there’s no mega TV rights deal, no audience for the game and thus no league. And for a team like the Pacers, who won 29 home games this season, home fans help provide an energy boost when the team needs it.
Advertisement
“They’re partially the reason why we’re winning games,” Young said. “They come in and they’re ready to go. They’re getting us amped up and fired up before games. I, personally, can’t say thank you enough to the fans for what they’ve done this season. We’re very, very appreciative and blessed to have fans like these Indiana fans. They get after it every game and it’s huge for us as a team.
This card is placed on courtside seats in every arena. (Scott Agness / The Athletic Indiana)
For the last several years, fans with tickets in the first few rows have a card waiting for them at their seat. It’s a simple message, just four sentences in all, informing fans the requirement to comply with the NBA’s Fan Code of Conduct. Before the second half of games inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse, a video is played on the giant video board asking for the respect of fans and to report anything that crosses the line.
Perhaps behavior at games is a reflection of society. The majority are respectful and mind their business, but a select few seek the attention, the chance to go viral or the opportunity to take their anger out on someone else.
“I think it’s not going to stop,” Collison said as he let out a sigh. “It’s going to continue to happen. Fans are going to say something to this player next week and there’s nothing we can do. It’s just the world we live in.”
You know the saying, one bad apple spoils the bunch? That also needs to be understood because it’s not in large numbers at games. It’s actually quite the opposite.
“We’re talking about a very, very, very small percentage,” Matthews wanted to make clear. “Most fans are tremendous and they’re great and they’re rooting for their home team. That’s part of the road element, you deal with fans and shit-talking. 99.8 percent of the time it’s cool and it’s fun. If you see me engaging, mine is playful, it’s back and forth, and sometimes it gets me going.
“It’s probably the liquid courage (for fans). That does it to a lot of people. It sucks, but it’s life and it’s something that people shouldn’t have to deal with in the workplace period.”
(Top photo of 76ers fans: Jim Davis / Getty Images)