Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart is all too familiar with fans abusing their near-court access to verbally abuse players on the court.
Before last season’s spotlight on the problem highlighted the ongoing issue across the league, when the Texan was still playing NCAA ball at Oklahoma State, an attendee (it strains the word to call them a “fan”) got into an altercation after Smart claimed the attendee hurled a racial epithet at him.
Investigations were conducted, Smart was suspended and his word was not taken at face value, with the emphasis focused on the fact the Flower Mound native laid hands on the man with a shove, per ESPN.
Then, in the 2018-19 season, a series of similar incidents around the league brought a long-time problem — not just in basketball but most sports — to the forefront when several attendees were banned by the NBA for using derogatory terms.
Such unsavory words were directed at the likes of Russell Westbrook, who was fined $25,000 for making threats back at the attendee, and DeMarcus Cousins, who had a similar experience in an exchange with a minor (per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps while playing against the Celtics in Boston last season.
Now, Smart finds himself in the news again after a similar situation unfolded in the team’s 96-92 loss to the Denver Nuggets on the evening of Nov. 22.
.@smart_MS3 explains his side of the interaction he had with a fan during the Celtics/Nuggets game. He rightfully asks for more protection of players during games pic.twitter.com/aJkW14tdHc
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) November 23, 2019
Hurling himself after a ball as he often does, the ex-Cowboy found himself tangled up in a chair as he sought to extricate himself from the front row, with a nearby attendee verbally abusing him.
“My foot got stuck in a chair, and the fan told me, ‘That’s right, stay on the ground, get on your knees,'” Smart explained (via ESPN). “Excuse me? You know what I’m saying. I just told him, ‘Listen, just watch the game.”
This would be where, if last season’s incidents were to have made a lasting policy change, security should have immediately removed the attendee to de-escalate the situation.
Their response, according to Smart, was little more than a casual glance.
“I told them who it was. They just looked at him and didn’t even say anything to him,” Smart said of their response. “… Probably if I was a superstar, they probably would’ve did something for it. It is what it is.”
While the Celtics locker room leader is correct in that players like Cousins and Westbrook did get some satisfaction after the fact, the latter didn’t avoid getting fined for his verbal response to the taunts. The league was, at least at that moment, earnestly seeking to redress such issues while also evidently looking to send a message about how players should respond to such abuse.
So, although it may be understandable why players like Smart and Westbrook are losing their cool, attention should be turned back on the responses from the league and individual franchises when one is hearing about them in the media.
Jazz owner Gail Miller addresses the crowd following Monday's incident involving Russell Westbrook and a fan. (Via @utahjazz)pic.twitter.com/Hg3eQCNXqH
— NBA TV (@NBATV) March 15, 2019
It’d be naive to believe these incidents are the only ones happening as it doesn’t take much effort to uncover accounts of players describing similar issues they experienced but did not report.
Eventually, that sort of abuse grates on people, their anger reaching a boiling point in a very relatable way.
Yet, such events have the potential to spiral out of control when fans abuse their proximity to live game action to behave inappropriately, whether racially-charged epithets or drinks are involved. Such moments could easily come back to haunt the league just as it’s trying to navigate a number of high-profile problems that could derail very costly investments to long-term plans.
What was the difference between Smart’s most recent altercation and Westbrook’s incident compared to Cousins’? A prompt investigation that took the then-Golden State Warrior’s complaint seriously, ejecting the attendee, followed up with a swift and fair punishment.
For Westbrook, that only happened after a media circus made the incident an eyesore and? for Smart, nothing at all has happened. At least yet.
No fine and no response from the league or the Denver Nuggets franchise. If the league and its teams refuse to act, sooner or later, a player is going to respond in anger, and it will be the worse for all involved.
The policy of the NBA and each individual team should be to treat all such claims by players seriously, with timely and appropriate punishment (as was the case with Cousins’ incident).
There should be no place for such language in NBA arenas, or for that matter, any workplace.
“[This is] a problem in the league that we gotta fix, because if we retaliate to protect ourselves, we’re the ones getting in trouble — they’re not — and that’s not right,” offered Smart on the thorny issue.
He’s not wrong.