League Action Against Kyrie Watch

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

Westbrook alone has gone into or at least tried to go into the stands on two different occasions.  He had the incident in Utah (Westbrook was fined 25k and the fan was banned for life) and then the incident in Philadelphia (the fan poured popcorn on his head when he was walking to the tunnel).  That is far worse than Irving flipping the bird from the court. 

Trae Young was spit on not that long ago, he thankfully didn't lash out. 

Heck, in Boston last year Irving had a water bottle thrown at him and the fan was arrested for attempted assault and battery. 

Utah had the incident with Morant's family resulting in several fans getting banned. 

We even had that guy run onto the court and get creamed by security in a playoff game last year.

And then you have things like this, where Durant is cussing out a fan for telling Durant "he has to take this game over"
https://twitter.com/DeLo_77/status/1504293717922009094?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1504293717922009094%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffansided.com%2F2022%2F03%2F17%2Fkevin-durant-fan-fight-nets-game%2F

Those have all been in the last year or so.  Fans have been crossing the line more and more, which is why you are seeing players lash out more and more (or in the case of Durant, him just being the a hole he is).

I’ll keep saying it because people are being willfully ignorant here. Everyone is aware that there have been a lot of single incidents in a game, everyone is aware of it. We all see this stuff going back even further than Barkley. What is unique in this situation is that kyrie had three separate incidents in the same game. If barkley went in the stands and spit on a girl in the first quarter, a 60 year old man in the second and then swore it someone in the stands in the 4th. It would have really concerned people. On top of this all, irving has expressed no remorse and basically vowed to the same thing game 2. Even more concerning he vaguely talked about escalating the situations by saying he stared down the fans to see if people were about it (which is a pretty common phrase for talking about fighting). Let’s stop this charade of acting like this isn’t a unique situation. It’s pretty boring and silly argument to make. If people want to say there is no problem with players constantly cursing at fans and flicking them off, I would love to hear it. But I don’t think the nets, Celtics are nba feel that way.

Brutal take. When did Kyrie spit on a fan? Or is that your hypothetical? Staring down=fighting? He admitted he was taking verbal abuse the entire game.

Basically vowed? Where did you get that? I watched his presser and not once did he say that he was going to continue in Game 2. He was answering questions about Game 1.

It's tough to take Kyrie's side (and something that I don't want to do), but your arguments make this a challenge.

[Moranis]

Fans can still get on Kyrie or any other player, they just can't be obscene or vulgar.  A fan should not scream anything that they wouldn't want their 10 year old daughter to hear.

I wish this was the standard.  From my experience, both at Fenway and the Garden, they let a lot of stuff go.  One of my least favorite sporting experiences is the "profane heckler", and unfortunately I've by in the presence of more than a few.

I was at a high school hockey game recently and there was one "fan" (maybe a parent, I don't know) who was just ridiculous.  I was there because my hockey group had the ice after the game and the game was in overtime so we had to wait.  Most of what this guys was screaming was directed at the refs but it was really bad and in a rink full of kids of all ages.  I was tempted but chose not to tell him what I felt about his language.  It wasn't that I thought he would try to fight me (I had a hockey stick in my hands after all) but it just didn't seem like it was going to help.

For the Celtics or professional sports in general, the "ugly fan" is an issue for other fans.  No one want to go to a game and listen to that.  This is why it is in the league's and the teams' best interest to figure out a way to control this.

Again, is "Kyrie suckz" vulgar or obscene?  I don't know but I would not want to listen to that all game after I had paid good money for a ticket.  It is kind of like second hand smoke.  Yes, you have a right to smoke but you have to respect the right of others to not breath your second hand smoke.  Same with fans, sure, you have a right to scream things (within reason) but you also have to respect the rights of other paying customers in the stands.

s.uck.s is not vulgar or obscene, but that isn't what Irving said was being shouted at him.  He pretty clearly said p...y, b...h, f... you, etc.  Those are in fact vulgar or obscene and shouldn't be said in an arena.

If you see the times when Irving responded, he was either directing it at a specific person and/or very close to the fans, who probably crossed some sort of line.  That is why I'm of the belief security needs to do a better job. 

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

Is anyone else embarrassed by the fans, or does Kyrie "deserve it"?

[bdm860]

Fans can still get on Kyrie or any other player, they just can't be obscene or vulgar.  A fan should not scream anything that they wouldn't want their 10 year old daughter to hear.

I wish this was the standard.  From my experience, both at Fenway and the Garden, they let a lot of stuff go.  One of my least favorite sporting experiences is the "profane heckler", and unfortunately I've by in the presence of more than a few.

I was at a high school hockey game recently and there was one "fan" (maybe a parent, I don't know) who was just ridiculous.  I was there because my hockey group had the ice after the game and the game was in overtime so we had to wait.  Most of what this guys was screaming was directed at the refs but it was really bad and in a rink full of kids of all ages.  I was tempted but chose not to tell him what I felt about his language.  It wasn't that I thought he would try to fight me (I had a hockey stick in my hands after all) but it just didn't seem like it was going to help.

For the Celtics or professional sports in general, the "ugly fan" is an issue for other fans.  No one want to go to a game and listen to that.  This is why it is in the league's and the teams' best interest to figure out a way to control this.

Again, is "Kyrie suckz" vulgar or obscene?  I don't know but I would not want to listen to that all game after I had paid good money for a ticket.  It is kind of like second hand smoke.  Yes, you have a right to smoke but you have to respect the right of others to not breath your second hand smoke.  Same with fans, sure, you have a right to scream things (within reason) but you also have to respect the rights of other paying customers in the stands.

s.uck.s is not vulgar or obscene, but that isn't what Irving said was being shouted at him.  He pretty clearly said p...y, b...h, f... you, etc.  Those are in fact vulgar or obscene and shouldn't be said in an arena.

If you see the times when Irving responded, he was either directing it at a specific person and/or very close to the fans, who probably crossed some sort of line.  That is why I'm of the belief security needs to do a better job.

For what it's worth, here's one fan's recap who was supposedly sitting in that section:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/u6vnx0/my_takes_on_the_game_and_kyrie_situation_as/

It doesn't clear anything up (says "nothing too harsh or over the line" and sound likes like a lot of people were yelling things, but also talks about people, including a 9 year old, cursing at Durant and Simmons too, so doesn't seem like a person who thinks cursing is over the line).

[mobilija]

Is anyone else embarrassed by the fans, or does Kyrie "deserve it"?

I don't mind the fans having a chant, trying to get in a player's head (esp Kyrie as he quit on this franchise, beyond just leaving in free agency). They are trying to create a home court advantage. I just kinda wish they could be more creative or on point and not vulgar. "Cry baby" or "quitter" or...something. Let him do the low level stuff.

Come on creative Celticstrong fans, help me out! What better chants can they say in Game 2? Get some ideas and spread it to those at the Garden! Keep the pressure but at the same time rise above the pettiness!

[Kernewek]

I dunno moji, you’re talking about the “Ugly Sister” fan base. We need to keep it that level or the Sully-s won’t join in.

[Vermont Green]

Is anyone else embarrassed by the fans, or does Kyrie "deserve it"?

I don't know if embarrassed is the right word but I am not defending any fan that shouts obscenities at players during the game.  Those fans are violating the stadium conduct rules and making it unpleasant for other fans.  At some point, those fans absolutely should be removed by security.

As to Kyrie, I do feel he deserves some level of heckling from fans.  I have no problem with fans doing this so long as they hold to the line of conduct (admittedly a very gray, squishy, line).  That is the problem though, the line for acceptable fan conduct is difficult to define and even harder for security to enforce.

I do not grant any leeway to Kyrie though for what he did on the court.  He is a professional athlete, paid millions to deal with it, and he did not deal with it properly.   He is over the line and in this case, it is not a gray or squishy line.  His actions are entirely unacceptable with no excuse or "yeah but" or anything.

[celticsclay]

Westbrook alone has gone into or at least tried to go into the stands on two different occasions.  He had the incident in Utah (Westbrook was fined 25k and the fan was banned for life) and then the incident in Philadelphia (the fan poured popcorn on his head when he was walking to the tunnel).  That is far worse than Irving flipping the bird from the court. 

Trae Young was spit on not that long ago, he thankfully didn't lash out. 

Heck, in Boston last year Irving had a water bottle thrown at him and the fan was arrested for attempted assault and battery. 

Utah had the incident with Morant's family resulting in several fans getting banned. 

We even had that guy run onto the court and get creamed by security in a playoff game last year.

And then you have things like this, where Durant is cussing out a fan for telling Durant "he has to take this game over"
https://twitter.com/DeLo_77/status/1504293717922009094?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1504293717922009094%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffansided.com%2F2022%2F03%2F17%2Fkevin-durant-fan-fight-nets-game%2F

Those have all been in the last year or so.  Fans have been crossing the line more and more, which is why you are seeing players lash out more and more (or in the case of Durant, him just being the a hole he is).

I’ll keep saying it because people are being willfully ignorant here. Everyone is aware that there have been a lot of single incidents in a game, everyone is aware of it. We all see this stuff going back even further than Barkley. What is unique in this situation is that kyrie had three separate incidents in the same game. If barkley went in the stands and spit on a girl in the first quarter, a 60 year old man in the second and then swore it someone in the stands in the 4th. It would have really concerned people. On top of this all, irving has expressed no remorse and basically vowed to the same thing game 2. Even more concerning he vaguely talked about escalating the situations by saying he stared down the fans to see if people were about it (which is a pretty common phrase for talking about fighting). Let’s stop this charade of acting like this isn’t a unique situation. It’s pretty boring and silly argument to make. If people want to say there is no problem with players constantly cursing at fans and flicking them off, I would love to hear it. But I don’t think the nets, Celtics are nba feel that way.

Brutal take. When did Kyrie spit on a fan? Or is that your hypothetical? Staring down=fighting? He admitted he was taking verbal abuse the entire game.

Basically vowed? Where did you get that? I watched his presser and not once did he say that he was going to continue in Game 2. He was answering questions about Game 1.

It's tough to take Kyrie's side (and something that I don't want to do), but your arguments make this a challenge.

If someone asks me why I was swearing back at someone and I said “I’m just giving him the energy he is giving me and I’m gonna keep doing that” what do you think that means exactly? Brutal way to not understand a basic concept. Good grief has this gotten ridiculous on here.

[celticsclay]

Fans can still get on Kyrie or any other player, they just can't be obscene or vulgar.  A fan should not scream anything that they wouldn't want their 10 year old daughter to hear.

I wish this was the standard.  From my experience, both at Fenway and the Garden, they let a lot of stuff go.  One of my least favorite sporting experiences is the "profane heckler", and unfortunately I've by in the presence of more than a few.

I was at a high school hockey game recently and there was one "fan" (maybe a parent, I don't know) who was just ridiculous.  I was there because my hockey group had the ice after the game and the game was in overtime so we had to wait.  Most of what this guys was screaming was directed at the refs but it was really bad and in a rink full of kids of all ages.  I was tempted but chose not to tell him what I felt about his language.  It wasn't that I thought he would try to fight me (I had a hockey stick in my hands after all) but it just didn't seem like it was going to help.

For the Celtics or professional sports in general, the "ugly fan" is an issue for other fans.  No one want to go to a game and listen to that.  This is why it is in the league's and the teams' best interest to figure out a way to control this.

Again, is "Kyrie suckz" vulgar or obscene?  I don't know but I would not want to listen to that all game after I had paid good money for a ticket.  It is kind of like second hand smoke.  Yes, you have a right to smoke but you have to respect the right of others to not breath your second hand smoke.  Same with fans, sure, you have a right to scream things (within reason) but you also have to respect the rights of other paying customers in the stands.

s.uck.s is not vulgar or obscene, but that isn't what Irving said was being shouted at him.  He pretty clearly said p...y, b...h, f... you, etc.  Those are in fact vulgar or obscene and shouldn't be said in an arena.

If you see the times when Irving responded, he was either directing it at a specific person and/or very close to the fans, who probably crossed some sort of line.  That is why I'm of the belief security needs to do a better job.

We actually do have it on tape of a fan literally just saying “you suck kyrie” and him responding to the guy to tell him to just suck on his … we literally have tape of this incident. Are we just gonna start making up what happened?

[Vermont Green]

How about just a chant of "kyyy - rriieee" or something like that.  Enough to get in his head.  Then maybe some cardboard cut outs of vaccine syringes.  And maybe a picture of Lucky with the caption, I am coming for you Kyrie.  Maybe Lucky stomping on a picture of Kyrie.

Or the "real" Lucky could do that before the game.  Get a big picture of Kyrie, bring it out to half court, and rub his foot on it.  Then give Kyrie a menacing stare.  Kyrie dissed Lucky, Lucky should be able to respond.  But no vulgar gestures or anything like that.

Kyrie Suckz chants or shout outs are likely to happen to, nothing you can do about that.  Hopefully nothing much worse.

It will be interesting to see how Kyrie responds.  I am sure the Nets coaches and management have told him no more vulgar gestures.  It is simply not OK.  Durant may be able to talk to him.  Kyrie does not have a history of listening to anyone so we shall see.

[celticsclay]

How about just a chant of "kyyy - rriieee" or something like that.  Enough to get in his head.  Then maybe some cardboard cut outs of vaccine syringes.  And maybe a picture of Lucky with the caption, I am coming for you Kyrie.  Maybe Lucky stomping on a picture of Kyrie.

Or the "real" Lucky could do that before the game.  Get a big picture of Kyrie, bring it out to half court, and rub his foot on it.  Then give Kyrie a menacing stare.  Kyrie dissed Lucky, Lucky should be able to respond.  But no vulgar gestures or anything like that.

Kyrie Suckz chants or shout outs are likely to happen to, nothing you can do about that.  Hopefully nothing much worse.

It will be interesting to see how Kyrie responds.  I am sure the Nets coaches and management have told him no more vulgar gestures.  It is simply not OK.  Durant may be able to talk to him.  Kyrie does not have a history of listening to anyone so we shall see.

I think these are all solid ideas, and I am sure there is a pretty big proportion of fans that are doing exactly these kinds of thing. I don't think anyone has been trying to say the fans were on their best behavior for the game or that security couldn't do a better job. However you are exactly right that the NBA and the Nets have both talked to him about that. Cause silly arguments being made on here aside, we know for a fact the league doesn't want its players repeatedly flipping off fans or swearing at them. I think the NBA is probably holding off on announcing fines for a news dump period to not distract from the games because they waited a number of days to slip in the 50k fine for bridges in his mouth piece incident.

[Moranis]

Fans can still get on Kyrie or any other player, they just can't be obscene or vulgar.  A fan should not scream anything that they wouldn't want their 10 year old daughter to hear.

I wish this was the standard.  From my experience, both at Fenway and the Garden, they let a lot of stuff go.  One of my least favorite sporting experiences is the "profane heckler", and unfortunately I've by in the presence of more than a few.

I was at a high school hockey game recently and there was one "fan" (maybe a parent, I don't know) who was just ridiculous.  I was there because my hockey group had the ice after the game and the game was in overtime so we had to wait.  Most of what this guys was screaming was directed at the refs but it was really bad and in a rink full of kids of all ages.  I was tempted but chose not to tell him what I felt about his language.  It wasn't that I thought he would try to fight me (I had a hockey stick in my hands after all) but it just didn't seem like it was going to help.

For the Celtics or professional sports in general, the "ugly fan" is an issue for other fans.  No one want to go to a game and listen to that.  This is why it is in the league's and the teams' best interest to figure out a way to control this.

Again, is "Kyrie suckz" vulgar or obscene?  I don't know but I would not want to listen to that all game after I had paid good money for a ticket.  It is kind of like second hand smoke.  Yes, you have a right to smoke but you have to respect the right of others to not breath your second hand smoke.  Same with fans, sure, you have a right to scream things (within reason) but you also have to respect the rights of other paying customers in the stands.

s.uck.s is not vulgar or obscene, but that isn't what Irving said was being shouted at him.  He pretty clearly said p...y, b...h, f... you, etc.  Those are in fact vulgar or obscene and shouldn't be said in an arena.

If you see the times when Irving responded, he was either directing it at a specific person and/or very close to the fans, who probably crossed some sort of line.  That is why I'm of the belief security needs to do a better job.

We actually do have it on tape of a fan literally just saying “you suck kyrie” and him responding to the guy to tell him to just suck on his … we literally have tape of this incident. Are we just gonna start making up what happened?

we also have tape of Durant bantering with the crowd on Sunday.  And countless other players doing basically the same thing every game, both home and away.  That isn't unusual at all.  Flipping the bird is a different sort of animal and that is what Kyrie said was said to him when he did that.  Those fans should have been ejected.  There is no place for that in an arena.  That is where security failed.  Kyrie should have ignored those fans, but he didn't.  He will be fined and will move on to the next game.  You are grossly overreacting to Kyrie's reaction though and making a mountain out of a mole hill.  Kyrie isn't unhinged.  He isn't having a mental break.  He responded to some lewd comments in a lewd manner.  It happens.  Oh well.  A guy that is unhinged and basically having a mental break as you allege, wouldn't have gone out and had one of the best games of his career and what will almost certainly be the best game he plays in the series.  You just can't do that if you are having a break from reality.  Kyrie was feeding off the negative energy and it fueled him to an awesome game.  He went overboard with the bird flipping, but it isn't a big deal in the scheme of things.  Pay his fine and go about his business in the next game.

[sgrogan]

Fans can still get on Kyrie or any other player, they just can't be obscene or vulgar.  A fan should not scream anything that they wouldn't want their 10 year old daughter to hear.

I wish this was the standard.  From my experience, both at Fenway and the Garden, they let a lot of stuff go.  One of my least favorite sporting experiences is the "profane heckler", and unfortunately I've by in the presence of more than a few.

I was at a high school hockey game recently and there was one "fan" (maybe a parent, I don't know) who was just ridiculous.  I was there because my hockey group had the ice after the game and the game was in overtime so we had to wait.  Most of what this guys was screaming was directed at the refs but it was really bad and in a rink full of kids of all ages.  I was tempted but chose not to tell him what I felt about his language.  It wasn't that I thought he would try to fight me (I had a hockey stick in my hands after all) but it just didn't seem like it was going to help.

For the Celtics or professional sports in general, the "ugly fan" is an issue for other fans.  No one want to go to a game and listen to that.  This is why it is in the league's and the teams' best interest to figure out a way to control this.

Again, is "Kyrie suckz" vulgar or obscene?  I don't know but I would not want to listen to that all game after I had paid good money for a ticket.  It is kind of like second hand smoke.  Yes, you have a right to smoke but you have to respect the right of others to not breath your second hand smoke.  Same with fans, sure, you have a right to scream things (within reason) but you also have to respect the rights of other paying customers in the stands.

s.uck.s is not vulgar or obscene, but that isn't what Irving said was being shouted at him.  He pretty clearly said p...y, b...h, f... you, etc.  Those are in fact vulgar or obscene and shouldn't be said in an arena.

If you see the times when Irving responded, he was either directing it at a specific person and/or very close to the fans, who probably crossed some sort of line.  That is why I'm of the belief security needs to do a better job.

We actually do have it on tape of a fan literally just saying “you suck kyrie” and him responding to the guy to tell him to just suck on his … we literally have tape of this incident. Are we just gonna start making up what happened?

we also have tape of Durant bantering with the crowd on Sunday.  And countless other players doing basically the same thing every game, both home and away.  That isn't unusual at all.  Flipping the bird is a different sort of animal and that is what Kyrie said was said to him when he did that.  Those fans should have been ejected.  There is no place for that in an arena.  That is where security failed.  Kyrie should have ignored those fans, but he didn't.  He will be fined and will move on to the next game.  You are grossly overreacting to Kyrie's reaction though and making a mountain out of a mole hill.  Kyrie isn't unhinged.  He isn't having a mental break.  He responded to some lewd comments in a lewd manner.  It happens.  Oh well.  A guy that is unhinged and basically having a mental break as you allege, wouldn't have gone out and had one of the best games of his career and what will almost certainly be the best game he plays in the series.  You just can't do that if you are having a break from reality.  Kyrie was feeding off the negative energy and it fueled him to an awesome game.  He went overboard with the bird flipping, but it isn't a big deal in the scheme of things.  Pay his fine and go about his business in the next game.

De-escalation is warranted.
Increased security as suggested.
Kyrie needs a fine big enough to appreciate the circumstances.
Unruly fans should be ejected.

Kyrie might not be unhinged but there is a pattern, with increasing frequency.
Maybe he uses his index finger to point out offending fans rather than the middle finger to fan the flames?

[angryguy77]

My kid did a "which NBA player am I?" last night and guess who and what he did?

No pearls were clutched on my end and I explained that it's not something to imitate and the issue is resolved. There are worse things he could've done and I'm not trying to make this into something bigger than what it is.  I'm thankful he did this at home so it could be addressed and not at school. He knows such a gesture is not not appropriate, but imitating one was an area that needed to be covered lol.

This is where I was coming from yesterday when I said we should be able to watch these games and not have to worry about whether or not a conversation is going to be needed to have after/during the game. It's just tiresome there is nothing wholesome left in our society that can be consumed without garbage like this added into into it.

[Kernewek]

Westbrook alone has gone into or at least tried to go into the stands on two different occasions.  He had the incident in Utah (Westbrook was fined 25k and the fan was banned for life) and then the incident in Philadelphia (the fan poured popcorn on his head when he was walking to the tunnel).  That is far worse than Irving flipping the bird from the court. 

Trae Young was spit on not that long ago, he thankfully didn't lash out. 

Heck, in Boston last year Irving had a water bottle thrown at him and the fan was arrested for attempted assault and battery. 

Utah had the incident with Morant's family resulting in several fans getting banned. 

We even had that guy run onto the court and get creamed by security in a playoff game last year.

And then you have things like this, where Durant is cussing out a fan for telling Durant "he has to take this game over"
https://twitter.com/DeLo_77/status/1504293717922009094?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1504293717922009094%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffansided.com%2F2022%2F03%2F17%2Fkevin-durant-fan-fight-nets-game%2F

Those have all been in the last year or so.  Fans have been crossing the line more and more, which is why you are seeing players lash out more and more (or in the case of Durant, him just being the a hole he is).

I’ll keep saying it because people are being willfully ignorant here. Everyone is aware that there have been a lot of single incidents in a game, everyone is aware of it. We all see this stuff going back even further than Barkley. What is unique in this situation is that kyrie had three separate incidents in the same game. If barkley went in the stands and spit on a girl in the first quarter, a 60 year old man in the second and then swore it someone in the stands in the 4th. It would have really concerned people. On top of this all, irving has expressed no remorse and basically vowed to the same thing game 2. Even more concerning he vaguely talked about escalating the situations by saying he stared down the fans to see if people were about it (which is a pretty common phrase for talking about fighting). Let’s stop this charade of acting like this isn’t a unique situation. It’s pretty boring and silly argument to make. If people want to say there is no problem with players constantly cursing at fans and flicking them off, I would love to hear it. But I don’t think the nets, Celtics are nba feel that way.

Brutal take. When did Kyrie spit on a fan? Or is that your hypothetical? Staring down=fighting? He admitted he was taking verbal abuse the entire game.

Basically vowed? Where did you get that? I watched his presser and not once did he say that he was going to continue in Game 2. He was answering questions about Game 1.

It's tough to take Kyrie's side (and something that I don't want to do), but your arguments make this a challenge.

If someone asks me why I was swearing back at someone and I said “I’m just giving him the energy he is giving me and I’m gonna keep doing that” what do you think that means exactly? Brutal way to not understand a basic concept. Good grief has this gotten ridiculous on here.

The bolded has me cracking up because it really is a pretty straightforward concept that you and Moranis practice daily.