The Jazz banned from their arena the fan who got into a verbal altercation with Russell Westbrook earlier this week.
What about the fan who repeatedly called Westbrook “boy” during last year’s playoffs?
Eric Woodyard of the Deseret News:
To Russell Westbrook’s defense, here is even further proof of his previous interactions with Utah Jazz fans. In this video, @russwest44 is called a “boy” by a Jazz fan ahead of Game 4 of OKC’s first-round playoff series against Utah on April 23, 2018 at Vivint Arena. pic.twitter.com/lc6slA7fTo
— Eric Woodyard (@E_Woodyard) March 13, 2019
This is the right move by the Jazz. That racist talk is completely unacceptable.
But what took so long?
Westbrook got security to handle the heckler at the time, according to Woodyard. The Jazz could have investigated and acted then. The video didn’t become public until this week, but there were still plenty of witnesses – including Westbrook – to the racist taunt.
This is happening only because Westbrook made such a big deal this week about the verbal abuse he has received. If he reacted passively to the latest heckler, it probably would have gotten swept under the rug. This year-old incident is so telling. The Jazz didn’t act – for nearly a year! – until Westbrook turned up the heat on them.
Westbrook got fined $25,000 for yelling profanity at the fan earlier this week. He shouldn’t have said what he did, even though his anger was completely understandable. But Westbrook’s harsh videoed and published response to the fan shined a light on much bigger problems in Utah.
Hopefully, the Jazz act far more swiftly in the future.
