Even though he’s going to go down as one of the best NBA players of all time, LeBron James is routinely heckled when he plays in opposing teams’ arenas. Look no further than this incident involving LeBron and a female Warriors fan during the NBA Finals last June for proof of that. So you would think that LeBron and those close to him would be used to the constant heckling by now. But according to one woman who attended the Cavaliers/Mavericks game in Dallas on Tuesday night, LeBron’s mom Gloria James got very angry with her after she heckled her son.
Dallas radio host Ben Rogers was at the game and saw an incident take place between the unidentified woman and LeBron’s mom sometime during the fourth quarter after the woman said something to LeBron when he was inbounding a pass. He pointed out what he saw on Twitter:
Yesterday, Rogers invited the woman to come on to his Ben & Skin podcast to discuss the incident, and she told her side of the story. The woman claims that she was yelling at LeBron while he was inbounding the ball—we’ll let you decide whether or not she used the PG language that she says she used—when LeBron’s mom came up from behind her and pushed her before yelling, “Don’t disrespect my son!” The woman claims she didn’t know it was LeBron’s mom at first but quickly figured it out.
“The ball was getting ready to go back into play on the court and I just jumped up and I said, ‘You’re going down. We’re going to beat you guys. We’re going to win this game,’” the woman said on the podcast. “He kind of threw the ball in or whatever, and then, the next thing I know, I got pushed. She looked at me and goes, ‘You don’t disrespect my son.’ I was like, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, don’t come to the game.’…I had no idea [it was LeBron’s mom]. I just got pushed and turned around and she goes, ‘Don’t disrespect my son.’ Then I figured it out.”
According to the fan, a male fan that was with her then intervened and got up into LeBron’s mom’s face.
“He just got really pissed because all of a sudden, out the blue, this person comes and pushes me,” she said. “It’s like, ‘What did I do to deserve that?’ I didn’t do anything to deserve that…He just basically said, ‘Why did you push her? Why are you doing this? Why did you come down here?’ It was ridiculous. All I did is got up and said, ‘Hey, you’re going down. We’re going to win this game.’ And then, it escalated to…it really didn’t need to escalate to that. I’m a fan of the Mavs. I love going to the games. I cheer my heart out. I have for years. That’s just…you don’t have a player’s mom come and do what she did to me. She needs to have thick skin. If she’s going to come to an away game with her son, have some thick skin. Sit back and let a fan yell for her team.”
After the game, the woman says security escorted LeBron's mom out of the arena. She also claims that security came to speak with her about the incident.
“Security came and stood right by her,” she said on the podcast. “We separated. We went back to our seats, she went back to her seats, and then at the very end of the game, her quote-unquote security came and got her and escorted her out. And then they came and got me and asked me questions to file a report.”
The fan didn’t want to identify herself on the podcast, but she did suggest that she wants an apology from LeBron’s mom.
“I think I deserve an apology,” she said. “I’m a fan. I shouldn’t have to be worried about a player’s mom coming and pushing me.”
She also didn’t rule out the idea of filing some sort of lawsuit when Rogers brought it up.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Guess what? My dad’s an attorney.”
For what it’s worth, Rogers took this photo with LeBron’s mom after the game was over:
Stay tuned to see if the Mavericks, Cavaliers, or LeBron’s camp respond to this woman’s story.
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[via Black Sports Online]
