An NBA fan who attended the Memphis Grizzlies vs. Sacramento Kings game on Sunday was ejected for comments he made to Tristian Thompson. According to Drew Hill of the Daily Memphian, the fan was thrown out for heckling the Kings player, including insults about the Kardashian family. According to TMZ Sports, Thompson, who has a complicated romantic history with Khloe Kardashian, was getting upset with a fan sitting courtside. He pointed the man out to the referees and arena officials, leading to the man being ejected.
Kings interim coach Alvin Gentry spoke about the incident to reporters after the game. “I don’t think it needs to be talked about or anything, but obviously it’s not anything that I’m going to tolerate people saying to my players—I know that—not without intervening and asking them to be removed,” Gentry told reporters. “They can say anything they want to me or they can boo and do everything they want with the players, but there’s no room for saying inappropriate things in a sporting event. That’s not why you’re there.”
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Thompson has been in an on-and-off relationship with Khloe Kardashian since 2016 and had a daughter with Kardashian named True. The couple broke up over the summer before reportedly getting back together after Thompson was traded from the Boston Celtics. Most recently, Thompson went on a rant about the Kings’ struggles.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we keep pushing, man,” Thompson said, per The Kings Herald. “No one is going to feel sorry for you. This is the NBA, no one is going to feel sorry for you. C Webb and Bibby aren’t walking through that door, so you’ve got to keep pushing each and every day. Keep getting better in practice, keep watching the film, learn from the mistakes. If we all can just get 1 percent better each and every day, then we’ll get our fair shares of wins.”
Thompson’s incident with the fan comes on the heels of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James getting two fans ejected from a game. It’s not clear what the fans said to James, but he told reporters after the game last week “when obscene gestures and language come into it, [it] can’t be tolerated. There’s a difference from cheering for your team and not wanting the other team to win and things I would never say to a fan and they shouldn’t say to me.”