THE NBA DOESN’T NEED HORRENDOUS FANS HAUNTING A SPECIAL FINALS — ESPECIALLY IN NEW YORK
Between Spurs people who taunted Jalen Brunson and a smiling creep who wanted a selfie with Victor Wembanyama, troublemakers must be prevented from more chaos in a series that could go seven games
What do we need, a moat? For the first time, the NBA should seriously explain why courtside fans are sitting so close to the players. That’s why Jalen Brunson was angry after Game 1, leaning into the stands as Spurs rooters voiced or gestured taunts about his wife. That’s why a fan jumped onto the hardwood and attempted to take a selfie with Victor Wembanyama, which forced the league to ban him and another person for life.
A reminder: This is San Antonio, for the first two games of the Finals. What happens when fans take over the landscape at Madison Square Garden, where secondary ticket prices are reaching $7,500 just to enter the building Monday night? When a championship event becomes a wild spectacle, the concern is how spectators might trash the show. If the Knicks win a title in New York, more police will be needed than the 22,000 officers last weekend in France, where almost 1,000 arrests were made after a Champions League victory by Paris Saint-Germain.
“Unspeakable,” President Emmanuel Macron said. “Enough. We are fed up. This is not football, this is not sport, this is not what we love.”
Who wants such danger and recklessness in America, as World Cup soccer teams are arriving? At least Brunson kept his cool Thursday, armed with a 1-0 lead after his fourth-quarter road magic. Asked about the fans, which led to an irate meeting with crew chief Scott Foster, he said, “I’m not touching that.” In the entertainment world, would Brunson spend $7,500 for any performance?
“A live Michael Jackson performance,” he said. “That’s a good one.”
If the Spurs want to win Game 2 on Friday night, they don’t want Brunson ticked off about anything. When people are paying insane amounts to sit on sidelines, the league has repeatedly warned teams about security issues. “It is critical that teams and arenas vigorously enforce the Code of Conduct and not tolerate any misconduct that impacts our players, fans, or otherwise disrupts the game,” the NBA said.
Where were the police and guards at Frost Bank Center? The Spurs and their city weren’t prepared. “I don’t think it was an event at all,” coach Mitch Johnson said. “I thought security got him out of there. I think everybody moved onto the next play.”
Whatever happens in San Antonio cannot happen in New York, where President Trump will attend Game 3. Imagine if another kook emerges with a camera in the final minutes.
“I even hesitate to describe that person as a fan,” league commissioner Adam Silver said of the selfie dude. “They seemed to have an ulterior motive for doing so. The other side of the coin of global attention is that somebody realizes there’s an enormous platform to do stupid things. They will be banned for life, not just from (San Antonio), but every arena in the NBA. The consequences are dramatic if you do this.”
Blaming the fan doesn’t help much. Another creep is out there with a new plan. If nothing else, Brunson can make a hollow demand for Michael Jackson, who passed away in 2009. If people bothered him with words and gestures, they’d better be gone by tipoff.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.