Courtesy of Dallas Mavericks
Audio By Carbonatix
The yearslong rivalry between the Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns has been heated, to say the least. Now, it looks like the flames have been further fueled during an exchange at a Feb. 22 game in Dallas. But rather than an on-the-court confrontation between Luka Doncic and Devin Booker, this one happened to be between courtside Mavs fans and the Suns’ own Kevin Durant.
As Durant and his team jogged into the American Airlines arena for pre-game warmups on Thursday, two Mavs fans seated a few rows from courtside screamed out at Durant. A viral video shows a man and woman calling the Suns forward a “bitch” quite audibly – enough to get Durant to abruptly change his course toward the court and walk directly toward the hecklers.
“What?” Durant is seen asking the pair as he approaches them. Seemingly proud of the reaction their shouts got, the Mavs fans are seen smiling, with the woman even holding out her hand to shake Durant’s. Most of the interaction is inaudible, but the Suns player can be seen refusing the handshake. Because of this, the fan’s face begins to drop as her companion, later identified as Houstonian Luke Brawner, explains to Durant how he “hosts a podcast about sports.”
Luka got a Suns fan ejected tonight after he yelled “Luka, you’re tired! Get your a** on the treadmill!”
(via @DuaneRankin, @espn_macmahon) pic.twitter.com/sFnAMH8NYI
— Overtime (@overtime) January 25, 2024
Durant then waves the two off and makes his way toward his team’s warmups on the other end of the court.
In a second video, Durant is seen returning to his hecklers and appears to interrupt American Airlines security from ejecting them from the arena.
“Don’t act like [that]. You’re a grownup,” Durant advises before returning to his teammates once again.
While this is seemingly the first time Mavs fans have been brave enough to call Durant, a former NBA All-Star MVP, a “bitch” to his face, it’s not the first time fan-player interactions have been messy at a Mavs-Suns game.
On Jan. 24, a Suns fan yelled at Doncic that he “looked tired” and needed to “get his ass on a treadmill” during another game between the teams in Dallas. But unlike the lucky Mavs fans from Thursday, the Suns fan was ejected from the game.
“They don’t look at us as humans sometimes,” Durant said in a post-game conference. “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.”
Last Friday, Brawner called in to 97.1 The Freak’s local radio show, The Ben and Skin Show, hosted by Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade. During the interview, Brawner confirmed that despite a vague cut-off in the beginning of the viral Twitter video, the person he was with actually aimed her statement directly at Durant by yelling “KD you’re a little bitch” in full. Brawner added that Durant was completely justified in his response and handled the incident with “as much class as you can” in that kind of situation.
Brawner also explained that he and his friend were at the Mavs game to honor their friend who died four years ago. Brawner’s lifelong best friend, who was also the brother of Brawner’s friend at the game, had been upset about Durant going to the Golden State Warriors, and would repeat his catchphrase, “KD’s a little bitch,” whenever someone would mention the NBA star.
Brawner said his friend’s comment at the game was said in jest and was not meant to target Durant. Unfortunately, she had yelled while Durant was in earshot, resulting in a response from the player. Brawner said he explained this to Durant during their conversation, which he believes is part of Durant’s reasoning for preventing the Mavs fans from getting kicked out of the arena.
“I sort of reflected on it this morning, I was like, ‘Man, you know, it was just a joke to us, but we forget the humanity of the person on the other end of that joke,'” Brawner said. “This is the irony of it, is I think that he saw the humanity of what we were doing, what we were trying to celebrate that night, and he came back and he honored that by not having us removed.”
Wade says hearing Brawner’s side of the story brought to light context that Wade “should have already known,” as he and Rogers have had similar revelations during past interviews. While he still does not condone what was said to Durant at the game, Wade says Brawner’s story shows how there’s always more to a story than what is shown or understood.
“I just think it’s so easy to see a 5-second video and just make all these assumptions about what’s going on in someone’s life, and I should know better than that,” Wade says. “Again, it doesn’t excuse it. I mean, I think it’s wrong but I can empathize with the logic behind what compelled them to say that in that moment.”
After speaking with Brawner, Wade says he believes Brawner was truthful and sincere in how he apologized and voiced his remorse. Wade believes Brawner nicely articulated how athletes’ humanity should always be taken into consideration, and feels that Brawner and his friend’s situation should serve as an example for hardcore sports fans on how to act in public and treat professionals in the field like the real people they are.
“Look, we’re passionate about our sports, we’re passionate about our fandom, but being in this business, I’ve learned so much about the real stories behind why someone was playing the way they were playing at the time that they were playing,” Wade says. “These players, they have so many levels of just … different layers of stories behind what makes them and their game what it is. […] We love being passionate about it, but you can’t ever lose the human side of it. And these are people – it doesn’t matter how much money they get paid, it does not excuse you or does not allow you to abuse them because the results of their life did not end up satisfying you.
“You can try to engage with them [the players] because it’s such a unique opportunity, but never in a disrespectful way.”
During the Ben and Skin Show segment, Brawner mentioned that he has tried to get a message to Durant through the athlete’s publicist so that the player knows how remorseful he and his friend are about last week’s incident. The radio hosts offered to also help Brawner get in touch with Durant’s team if needed, but Wade says they will only do so in a respectful manner if their contacts say it is OK and appropriate to do so.
Hear the full podcast episode below:
