On Sunday, the NBA handed down a two-game suspension to Washington Wizards guard Isaiah Thomas for going into the stands of the Wells Fargo Center to confront two fans who were screaming obscenities at him.
In an Instagram post that since been deleted, Gilbert Arenas said he wanted players in the league today to “stop this goofy shit” with fans who are heckling them. Arenas shared an incident where two fans insinuated that Shaq was sleeping with his girlfriend, but unlike Thomas, he never confronted them.
Arenas later retold his account of another incident where a Boston fan called him the N-word. However, once again, Gil didn’t respond, and instead, used their racist remark as fuel for his performance.
"In Boston...kid was calling me the N word...I said imma bust your teams ass and it will be ur fault," Arenas recalled. "Every time I scored I said it's ur fault...every time I missed (u suck piece of shit) 4th were up 15 I get subbed out and looked at him and said (n***a lover, u have on a Paul Pierce jersey) he started laughing and said u got me on that one.
"Every game after that he had on a wizards 0 jersey," he continued. "It's part of the game...just gonna entertain and understand...most of the time they came to see u anyway."
Unfortunately, not every player is built like Arenas when it comes to dealing with outlandish fan behavior. He cannot expect every single player in the league to respond the same as he would.
