Monday night’s game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz featured a moment in which Russell Westbrook jawed with an opposing fan. The game took place in Salt Lake City, and according to both Westbrook and a collection of his teammates, a Jazz fan told the former MVP to “get down on your knees like you’re used to,” which led to Westbrook telling the fan he would “f*ck you up, you and your wife.”
Westbrook explained after the game that he would do this again if given the opportunity, because he felt the comments were both racist and “completely disrespectful to me.” One day later and two of Utah’s players have decided to comment on the incident.
Thabo Sefolosha posted a letter on Instagram regarding the incident in which he said the fan in question crossed a boundary with his remarks, offering his undivided support for Westbrook. He did mention that he thinks he’s going to delete this sometime soon, but for now, here’s what he had to say.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu6nkU2h22B/
Sefolosha, of course, suited up next to Westbrook from 2009-14 as a member of the Thunder. Still, seeing a Utah player offer support for Westbrook to this extent is really encouraging.
Shortly after Sefolosha posted this, Donovan Mitchell offered up a statement to Tony Jones of The Athletic. While he didn’t explicitly offer his support to Westbrook, he did say he was “personally hurt” by what went down and wants to work to “help make our arenas and our communities more inclusive and welcoming,” citing a specific desire to encourage “bans on hate speech and racism.”
https://twitter.com/Tjonesonthenba/status/1105552568938196992
There’s still no word on the results or a possible timetable for a resolution on Jazz’s investigation into what went down.
