Former NBA champion Jim Chones, who won a ring with the 1980 Showtime Lakers, believes the relationship between fans and players has changed since his time. In decades past, the NBA was purely a sports league, one that provided entertainment to those sitting or watching on television. Now, however, he says, it’s a whole “social network.”
“This fan is different,” Chones tells The Guardian. “If you base what a fan is on traditional values, themes and character, you’ll miss the whole boat.”
Today, Chones says, fans have access to almost anything they want. With smartphones, fans can stream multiple games, browse the web, gamble, chat with friends, work, or even watch a movie while attending a game. With these fragmented attentions, Chones believes the NBA must cater to what fans want or else it risks falling behind. Yes, we have now reached the era of fan empowerment.
“It becomes a question of access,” says Chones, who played professionally for 10 years. “It becomes a thing of ‘This is what I want and if you can’t provide it to me, I have other options.'”
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Fans have more influence than ever, he says. But that change is not always positive. While social norms have changed since the harsher (read: more racist) mid-20th century, there remains a tendency among fans to treat players more and more like objects and less like human beings. To highlight just one example, during an NBA game earlier this year, a white fan called Russell Westbrook “boy” repeatedly (It was not the first time the guard had not heard the fans’ insult either). Of course, these stories have, unfortunately, long been part of a league where the majority of the players are black and the majority of the fans are white. It happened as early as the 1960s, when Bill Russell had his bedroom stained with feces or later, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar heard vile and degrading comments or when Vernon Maxwell punched a fan for talking about his wife’s miscarriage. Access is therefore not always a good thing, and social media means fans can now belittle and abuse players off the pitch, 24 hours a day.
However, the NBA is forced to offer more. This has led to all kinds of entertainment and theme nights at stadiums. If you ask Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.Stadiums can also create an overly disruptive nightclub atmosphere, something Chones’ former employer Jerry Buss started in the 1980s with the Fabulous forum and Playboy type forum club. “It’s like a South Beach club. What are we doing?” Kerr lamented after a November game. “I couldn’t hear anything out there. It’s just the whole game, it’s just techno club music. Can we still play a basketball game?”
Chones says he understands Kerr’s concerns, but adds: “I like Steve, but Steve is pretty narrow…The NBA is more than a basketball league. It’s a social network: it drives conversation, culture, fashion and mental health. We promote all of this through the NBA. So, you’ll get a different kind of fan. “It’s more than wins and losses.”
However, attempts at entertainment aside, there are many cases where fans may feel like they deserve too much (which is something that Steve Balmer’s new hyper-game-centric Los Angeles Clippers stadium is trying to fight). That’s when the ugly side of law appears.
“I think there are some cities that may be, in some players’ minds, a little worse than others,” veteran NBA broadcaster Kevin Calabro says judiciously. “I know back in the day when we had intense rivalries in Seattle, there were a few cities we went to and certainly the fans could get the attention of some of the players. But as long as you don’t get personal, don’t use bad language, fans should be free to have fun.”
But sometimes fans get too personal or demand too much. “Fans have crossed and will continue to cross the line,” says Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish. “Taking too many liberties. We, as people, must realize that your words and actions have consequences. (And) alcohol doesn’t help with discipline and fan behavior (either).”
Although many are great overallSome fans have also been furious, especially those in Boston and Los Angeles during the Heated rivalry between Lakers and Celtics of the 1980s. More recently, there have been events that have gone too far. While some encounters with fans have been simply annoying or rude, such as when these fans said Dallas star Luka Dončić will use a treadmill (and got it kicked out), or when fans He chided Suns star Kevin Durant as if he were a robot, not a human being, or when others booed him Oklahoma City Relentlessly, there are times when it gets worse. In another case, Westbrook nearly got into a fight with angry fans in Utah. telling hecklers, “I’ll screw you. “You and your wife.” And just a few weeks ago, got into a fight with a Charlotte fan who called him “Westbrick.” Chris Paul’s family was also berated by fans in the stands during a recent playoff game. leading Paul to tweet“I want to fine the players for saying things to the fans, but the fans can put their hands on our families…Fuck it!!” And Kyrie Irving, who has had a lot of friction with fans over his political views and his relationship with the cities in which he has played over the years, is famous for giving the Double-bird salute to Boston ticket holders not long ago during a wave of “Kyrie sucks” chants.
“Kyrie and Russell’s actions were justified,” Parish notes, “because fans take it personally when family members are spoken negatively about. We as people must behave better. But that is an illusion.”
Four-time NBA All-Star Michael Ray Richardson, who played eight years in the league before playing nearly two decades in Europe, says fan behavior that goes too far isn’t just limited to the United States. And abroad it is sometimes even worse.
“I remember in Europe,” Richardson says, “Greece is one of the worst places in the world I’ve ever played. I remember we called a timeout and someone threw a firecracker in the middle of our meeting. They were throwing soda cans. Being in Greece is a disaster. In the United States it’s not really like that. You can find some fans who can be really rude after having three or four drinks, but other than that, it’s not that bad.”
For Richardson, playing and training in hostile environments was nothing new. And he believes fans say things from the safety of the stands that they wouldn’t say face to face.
“I think when they curse or use racial slurs or throw things in the stands and all that, it’s too much,” Richardson says. “Using racial slurs or personal things, I think it’s over the line. Because fans can come and tell you one thing when you’re on the basketball court. But if you’re outside the courtroom, I guarantee they wouldn’t say anything like that.”
Today with The stakes are getting higher of a priority in the game, friction between players and fans can be even more intensified than in the past. What the future of this relationship will be is unknown. But, as Chones says, fans are in the driver’s seat more than ever, even in the Extremely popular NBA. Whether that’s a good thing or not, time will tell.
