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On Thursday night, Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns were slated to take on the Dallas Mavericks. Before the game, the former MVP had a run-in with a pair of fans. According to Durant, people in the crowd yelled profanities at him as he was coming out the tunnel.
Durant opened up on the unacceptable behaviour from NBA patrons. Despite how they acted towards him, KD made sure security did not remove them from the arena.
Kevin Durant downplayed the incident but shared his thoughts on how fans forget that players are humans just like them.
"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."
The Dallas Mavericks beat the Suns 123-113 on Thursday. Kevin Durant logged 40 minutes and produced 23 points, six rebounds and one assist.
Kevin Durant once had a fan ejected for heckling him
While Kevin Durant let things slide on this occasion, he has not always been as kind. Once, he had a fan removed after making comments at him.
The instance came during Durant's time with the Golden State Warriors against the Portland Trail Blazers. In the midst of the game, Durant appears to get into it with a fan sitting courtside.
After some time, the superstar forward had security remove the man from his seat. To exacerbate matters, Durant appears to have blown a kiss at the fan as he was escorted from his seat.
It likely had to do with the amount of scrutiny Durant faced daily at that time of his career. In 2016, he became one of the biggest villans in the NBA for leaving the OKC Thunder to join the Warriors.
Now older and more mature, Durant has learned to handle things in a different fashion. While he could have had the Mavericks fans removed for what they said, he chose sympathy.
He understands that fans spend their hard earned money on tickets, so he doesn't want to see that go to waste, so it was truly a classy move from the Phoenix Suns star forward.
