Having fans back at games is great — let’s not mess it up
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
In statistical terms, it has now been 309 days since the NBA returned, though it has never felt more "back" than over the past couple of weeks.
The ongoing playoffs have been supercharged with drama, delight and stories aplenty, which, combined with the monumental development of increases in live crowd participation, have provided the league with what should be its most positive traction since the upheaval that sent the world spinning off its axis.
As sports fans, it is a joy to behold: engaged, vociferous, passionate supporters wearing their jerseys and distracting free-throw shooters and high-fiving mascots and — gulp — yes, even high-fiving one another.
Let’s not mess it up.
There aren’t many things that can spoil the positive vibes of a tremendously competitive postseason that no one seems able to predict. The standard of play is speaking for itself, the lack of predictability (whatever happened to home-court advantage?) is a superbly welcome quirk, and all that noise from the stands is, frankly, magnificent.
Yet no glowing endorsement of the NBA postseason can be complete without pointing out the disturbing fan incidents that have marred the start of bracket action.
One incident is too much. Two or three are worrisome but can perhaps be judged individually. When the number increases to the point that it feels like there is something new and unsavory to talk about on a consistent basis, well, that’s when it becomes a trend.
"Being in the house for a year and a half with the pandemic got a lot of people on edge," Kevin Durant said, "got a lot of people stressed out."
Durant is right. Show me a human being, basically any human being, and you’ll almost certainly be showing me someone whose life has more stressful elements and trigger points than was the case in those optimistic days of early 2020.
Yet there is no excusing the things that have been happening to coincide with the mass return of fans to indoor arenas across the country.
Can we simply talk about a postseason that has been as good as any in recent memory? There is no need for extras. The Phoenix Suns, sparked by the spectacular Devin Booker, just ousted the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers with style, bravery and flat-out excellence.
The Clippers-Mavericks series is a masterpiece currently spearheaded by a young virtuoso, as Luka Doncic breaks out into fresh realms of productivity. The Brooklyn Nets vs. Milwaukee Bucks second-round matchup is mouthwatering, featuring one team (with three stars) that everyone is looking at and an opponent, so good in the first round that it just had a week off, that is somehow still under the radar.
Unfortunately, over the past week and change, there has been too much to talk about apart from the events on the hardwood.
Things began with the ignorant and pathetic, veered quickly into disgusting and outrageous, then speared rapidly toward physically dangerous and downright unforgivable.
It started May 26, with Russell Westbrook having a container of popcorn dumped on him as he left the floor after the Washington Wizards dropped Game 2 to the Philadelphia 76ers. The same night, Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young was targeted by a cowardly fan who spit on his back from the courtside seats at Madison Square Garden, and the New York Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley also revealed that a cup of beer had been hurled at the New York bench.
On Sunday, Kyrie Irving had a water bottle thrown in his direction after the Nets played the Boston Celtics. A day later, a fan ran onto the floor at Capital One Arena and was tackled during the Wizards’ Game 4 win over the 76ers.
"People just feel very entitled out here," Irving said. "Pay for their tickets, great. We are not at the theater. We are not throwing … random stuff at the people that are performing. It is too much. It is a reflection on us as a whole when you have fans acting like that."
Then, in an appalling twist, it emerged that early in the Utah-Memphis series, the family of Grizzlies star Ja Morant was subjected to vile racist and sexist abuse in Salt Lake City. Comments allegedly issued to Morant’s father, Tee, were horrendous enough to not bear repeating here. Rest assured, they were sickening.
There has been swift action from the league and from individual teams. Offenders in each of the incidents were removed from the premises, and lifetime bans were handed out, with criminal charges pressed against the person who targeted Irving.
It has to stop. Sports is a celebration, but this is a blight. The wonderful thing about live crowds is that thousands of people can congregate to enhance the experience of sporting entertainment. The downside is that of all those people, it only ever takes one idiot.
This isn’t an attempt to preach. I have been captivated by sports my whole life and have no wish for the intensity of things to be dialed down or sanitized.
Yet while there is a collective desire to make up for lost time by showing passion and deep-rooted support, this is not the way.
Let’s keep the perspective. Sports matters. Basketball matters. Say what you like, but the games we love did play a role in healing the country with their return. They are not trivial.
Yet they are also not life and death, and they do not provide a free pass for behavior that wouldn’t fly in any other circumstance. There are already some concessions.
You’re allowed to yell, you’re allowed to cuss if you really must, you’re allowed to tell another person they suck at their job, and you’re allowed to boo. If you have a full head of hair — heck, even if you don’t — and you want to tell Trae Young he’s balding, you can do that.
That is the privilege of being a fan. And it is enough.
There is always an element of competition involved with being a team supporter, to show that your fandom is greater, your love of the organization cuts deeper, that you feel more and care more and want your team to win more than the next person.
The natural extension of that, however, isn’t to dump popcorn or hurl beer or throw anything for that matter. It is certainly not to spit or abuse or endanger yourself and others by invading the arena of play.
It is to be transfixed by the action, to live through the ups and downs, to find those extra pennies for a ticket, to (in most cases) experience the pain of a playoff exit yet come back for more next season because that’s your team, that’s who you are, and that’s what you do.
The rest of it — the nonsense, the stuff that gets offensive, degrading, violent or racist — that doesn’t make the offender more of a fan. It means they hate sports, even if they think they don’t.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
