The Philadelphia 76ers brought in Kris Humphries and Emeka Okafor in advance of training camp, presumably to bring leadership and the chance to bolster frontcourt depth. While Okafor has been out of the league for quite some time, he remains beloved while Humphries played last season in Atlanta and, apparently, is not.
In short, Sixers fans have taken to booing Humphries whenever he touches the ball (or even takes the court) in the preseason and, well, that is undeniably weird. It is already strange for a home fan base to consistently boo a player, much less in the preseason, but Humphries projects to be only a (very) peripheral member of the 2017-2018 squad.
As for the booing itself, it comes like a wave and, again, doesn’t make a ton of sense outside of Humphries’ weird past that includes a (very) short marriage to Kim Kardashian.
[protected-iframe id=”92cdeab7009d48560e734bf36e5fe039-60970621-76566046″ info=”https://vplayer.nbcsports.com/p/BxmELC/philly_embed/select/media/UxH71S0MXnfh” width=”624″ height=”351″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””]
The video above is pretty jarring in a preseason context and it wasn’t a one-time thing in Philadelphia.
Kris Humphries just got boo'd checking in, IN philly lol pic.twitter.com/agyeyZlm57
— drew (@sixersruinedme) October 5, 2017
Beyond that, the Sixers community swung into action with some reaction to Humphries’ boos.
https://twitter.com/femalecostanza/status/915744151098019841
https://twitter.com/Bhunt1515/status/915742654331326465
Kris Humphries is getting booed by the home crowd every time he touches the ball.
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) October 5, 2017
Kris Humphries just got booed for checking in. That’s a new one.
— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) October 5, 2017
Because Sixers fans are very dedicated to “The Process,” it is at least conceivable that they are upset at the investment in Humphries over a young player that has some modicum of upside. Still, they aren’t doing this for other veterans in Philly and, without further explanation, we are left to only assume as to why this hate is occurring.
Update: This story originally referenced a tweet from Elton Brand. It was brought to our attention that, while extremely dedicated and authentic looking, this account is a fake despite being followed and retweeted by a number of legitimate outlets.
