DALLAS — Kevin Durant was taking the court with his Phoenix Suns teammates but made an immediate U-turn.
Durant overheard a female fan call him “b—-“. He turned around and had a conversation with two fans with the other one being male. Both were wearing Dallas Mavericks gear.
“My thing was like, even though you called me a b—- as I’m running out with my back turned, people usually do that, call me coward, b—- with my back turned, and it wasn’t too many people around,” Durant said. “I know you don’t mean that and I’m not going to get you kicked out because you paid your money for these tickets, you had a couple of drinks and I understand how people get, but it’s better ways to try to get my attention and talk to me other than call me a b—- out my name because you’re protected in these arenas.”
The Suns lost, 123-113, before a sellout crowd of 20,377 at American Airlines Center. Durant finished with 23 points, but found himself addressing a situation before the game even began.
As Durant was talking to the fans, the female one kept trying to extend her hand to him. Both fans were holding full cups of beer. Suns security was there throughout the whole conversation that Durant eventually left to continue his pregame routine.
“I can’t go do nothing to you,” Durant continued. “It’s going to mess up everything that I’ve built up. There are better ways to talk to people. There are better ways to try to get attention, there’s better ways to indulge in a conversation with somebody besides trying to get a reaction out of them/ by calling them a b—-. I could’ve easily gotten them kicked out and maybe ban them for a few weeks, but I’d rather have them watch me play.”
Durant went back onto the court to continue pregame warmups. Durant then returned when seeing American Airlines Center security were looking to kick the two fans out.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Durant said. “It’s like, they don’t look at us as humans sometimes. 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.”
Durant said the female fan did indeed backtrack and tried to “play it cool.” Durant said her friend explained that she was going through “a lot.” Durant believed the fan thought he’d keep running onto the court.
“My thing was, there’s better ways to get my attention,” Durant said. “If you want to talk to me, if you want to get to know me, this for everybody. You don’t got to get a reaction out of me by calling me out of my name or disrespecting my character. Just say ‘what’s up’ and tell me how you truly feel. You don’t think I’m a b—-. You respect me more than that. You know I’m not a coward. You respect me more than that. Don’t do that in an arena where you’re protected where you know I’m not going to do anything back.”
Durant is in his 17th NBA season.
“I get it,” Durant said. “I know the people want to pet the animals in the zoo, get close to the animals in the zoo, but once they get close, they realize you’re real human beings, too. So you should treat us like that. I could’ve had them kicked out. Nah, don’t put that on me. They just called me a b—-. They didn’t harm me. They didn’t try to harm me, physically. Let them stay and give them something to think about going forward.”
When Phoenix played at Dallas last month, Luka Doncic responded to a Suns fan from the stands who yelled out he needed to get on the treadmill by signaling for the fan to be kicked out during play and later had words for the fan during a timeout.
Have opinions about the current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.
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First appeared on www.azcentral.com