Well before the controversial finish, last night’s Rockets-Jazz game featured some odd behavior.
Jody Genessy of the Deseret News:In a bizarre moment, the game was stopped while Harden and a referee pointed up into the stands at a fan who was pointing a flashlight at the Rocket star’s eyes while he was shooting free throws.
“Some guy was lasering me,” Harden explained. “I saw it the first time. I thought it was just a picture being taken, so I went up to the foul line again and it happened again. The referee caught it before I did.”
The fan in the Vivint Smart Home Arena stands wasn’t so lucky.
He was escorted out by security, kicked out of the building and was given a one-year ban from NBA games for, as Jazz PR described it, “aiming a flashlight at a player during a game.”
The fan is lucky he received just a one-year ban. The NBA can afford to exclude its most obnoxious and harmful fans from arenas and still sell enough tickets to generate massive profits.
