The NBA has fined DeMarcus Cousins for swearing at fans four separate times during his career.
The Golden State Warriors star recently revealed on that fans have directed numerous racial taunts at him, and even went as far to refer to him with the n-word.
Cousins, via Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports:
“Oh, I’ve been called n—–,” he told Yahoo Sports in the latest Posted Up video podcast that will be released this week. “And it’s crazy because this has happened to me on a few occasions. I reported it to the league, and, you know, I may have said whatever I said back and I was still punished for it. But obviously it became a bigger issue when it was Russ [Westbrook], and he was still fined for it. I don’t really understand it. We’re the product. We push this league, so I don’t understand. When does our safety, when does it become important?”
When asked which cities he heard racial slurs, the nine-year veteran and four-time All-Star declined to answer. However, league sources told Yahoo Sports one of the incidents occurred in Sacramento.
“I don’t really want to [name cities or teams], because I’m not really trying to put a label on an entire fan base,” Cousins told Yahoo Sports. “There are ignorant individuals in every city. I’ll just put it like that. … [The league] tells you to ignore it, or whatever the case may be, but how many times am I supposed to ignore that. Me coming from where I come from [Mobile, Alabama], they lucky all they got was a response.”
This is an ongoing issue that can only be corrected if the NBA continues to step in and ban these fans from games, much like the Utah Jazz organization was forced to do after Russell Westbrook had to deal with some unruly and racists fans.
“I think it kind of went viral with the whole Russ thing,” Cousins said. “I’m sure that played a part in it. He’s had multiple instances in that same city. You even got the one clip of the guy flipping Russ off. Like, when does the game get that serious for a fan? Why are you that angry? This dude is literally out there putting a ball through a hoop. How do you get that angry?”
