Over the span of just a few hours, the NBA saw three instances of abhorrent fan behavior towards an opposing player on Wednesday: one spitting on the Hawks’ Trae Young at Madison Square Garden, another dumping popcorn on Wizards star Russell Westbrook as he exited down the tunnel at Wells Fargo Center, and three more making racist remarks to Memphis’ Ja Morant’s family in Utah.
The first two fans have been banned from their respective arenas and the one who dumped popcorn on Westbrook issued a formal apology, but the league isn’t going to let that happen again, releasing a statement promising stricter enforcement of their fan code of conduct policy.
On Friday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver took that a step further, telling NBC Sports Washington’s Chris Miller he was watching the Wizards-Sixers game and saw the Westbrook incident live.
“I’m watching the games at night from my home. So, we saw that one happen in real-time," Silver said. “In this case, even with the tarps that cover the [tunnels], there was a gap between the tarp and the railing. There’s a reason those tarps are there: because there had been incidents where things were thrown on players, drinks spilled or other things. We can tighten that up.”
According to Silver, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts also reached out about the Westbrook incident, as Russ is the Wizards’ alternate player rep.
"Their leadership team was working with us to make sure we do everything we can to prevent incidents like that from happening going forward," Silver said. “We need zero tolerance. It’s our job to protect the players and the coaches and the officials. We want to make sure everyone knows it is zero tolerance, If you engage in that type of behavior, you will be caught, particularly because even if it’s not recognized at first, there are so many cameras in all of our arenas now that no one is going to get away with that kind of behavior."
Silver says the league will also look at tightening up security and placing them in more strategic locations, which will be important as the NBA prepares to welcome back bigger and bigger crowds for the later rounds of the playoffs and the 2021-22 season.
“It’s been a while since we've had large crowds in our arenas. And maybe people let their guards down a bit," Silver said. "It’s critically important because, while of course we’re thrilled that fans are able to be back in our arenas, to get out of their homes to share this experience with others, we have to demonstrate that there is zero tolerance for that sort of behavior. I recognize it’s a minuscule percentage of fans, but they also can destroy the atmosphere for everyone who’s there.”
And, he’s hoping that the combination of zero tolerance and public consequence will deter any thoughts of fans overstepping their bounds.
“No one is going to get away with an act like that. You're going to be caught. You're going to be banned from an arena,” Silver said. “In some cases there may be criminal prosecution depending if the conduct rises to that level of an assault or something that the police are going to take note of.”