If you missed the Thunder/76ers game on Wednesday night, then you missed two things: The emergence of Joel Embiid, who looks like he could be the real deal for Philadelphia, and the incredible reaction that Russell Westbrook had to a Sixers fan flipping him off with not one, but two middle fingers in the first half of the game. The second one in particular was a pretty incredible moment, and while the NBA obviously doesn’t want to promote fan behavior like that, Westbrook’s reaction really was that good.
What in the world caused the fan to snap the way he did, though? That’s what a lot of NBA fans have been wondering, and it looks like Philly.com may have gotten to the bottom of it. Or at the very least, they have identified the fan and found out what he claims happened.
According to Philly.com, the Sixers fan who flipped Westbrook off is a Philadelphia urologist named Dr. Richard Harkaway. And on Thursday, he used his personal Facebook page to address the situation and to claim that Westbrook was actually the one who started the confrontation on Wednesday night. Whether you choose to believe him or not, Harkaway wrote that he was simply reacting to something Westbrook said when he stuck his middle fingers up at him.
"To all my FB friends who are seeing a picture of me on the internet giving the finger to Russell Westbrook. Actually two fingers," he wrote. "Not as simple as it seems. I love to scream at the players and anyone who has been to a game with me knows this. Part of my charm. What you may not have seen on any of the video clips is what started the whole thing, which was Russell Westbrook saying, 'sit down f— fat boy,' when I stood up to boo….I am sometimes sensitive about my plumpness. I guess I got a little out of hand."
Uh, ya think?
This is what Westbrook had to say about the incident after the game:
Westbrook did appear to yell in Harkaway's direction right before the fan flipped him off, but it’s unclear exactly what he said. So you’ll have to choose which side of the story to believe here. Either way, it doesn’t make Westbrook’s reaction to Harkaway’s middle fingers any less amazing.
