It’s been a weird few weeks for Kevin Durant. Beyond the fact that the Golden State Warriors haven’t quite looked like their dominant selves while Steph Curry has been on the sideline due to a groin injury — they’ve lost four of their last five and three in a row — an on-court spat with Draymond Green led to questions popping up about whether Durant will be with the team beyond this year. The fact of the matter is this kind of stuff can be really, really frustrating, and against the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday, Durant’s frustrations boiled over.
Durant was getting heckled by some fans sitting on the baseline in Dallas, and in response, he went over and used some NSFW language to tell them off.
Telling someone to do this stuff can be cathartic, I imagine, but when it gets caught on camera like this, there’s about a 10 billion percent chance it’s going to lead to some kind of punishment. That came down on Tuesday afternoon, when Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reported Durant was going to face a $25,000 fine from the league.
Golden State forward Kevin Durant will be fined $25,000 for telling a heckling fan to “watch the fucking game and shut the fuck up” during Sunday’s loss to Dallas, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) November 20, 2018
The NBA announced this fine shortly after, saying his wallet was going to get a little lighter for “directing inappropriate language toward a fan.” Trash talking fans isn’t the most uncommon thing on earth — it’s something that is bound to happen with how close they are to the action at basketball games — but obviously, going this far and getting it caught on camera is not cool.
