Danny Green Says Tobias Harris "Does Not Deserve the Disrespect that He's Gotten"
Tobias Harris was booed by Sixers fans on Monday night and egged them on. It was a classic Philly booing moment that almost every highly-paid athlete here experiences at some point.
Here comes Danny Green again on the topic, not exactly ripping Sixers fans but throwing support behind his teammate, similar to the Ben Simmons quotes he dropped in the summer. Andrew Salciunas at 97.5 the Fanatic pulled this audio from a recent Sirius hit, and they played it on the radio:
From @975Middays – If you missed the most recent Danny Green comments on Philly fans and Tobias Harris, here you go: pic.twitter.com/d3WJJuSR95
— Connor Thomas (@ConnorThomas975) January 5, 2022
People are talking about this on social and on the radio, but this really is standard fare. We’ve been over this before. Danny wants the fans to ride or die with the players, but a portion of fans feel like it’s their prerogative to boo if a player is dogging it or not performing to the level we know they can perform.
Going back to media day in September, I asked Green if he could clarify the original comments he made on John Clark’s podcast over the summer, when he said fans should get behind the players and stick with them.
Here’s how he explained it:
Green: “We love our fans. They hold us accountable and want us to be great. And we’re gonna do the same. I felt there were times in the regular season that were shocking to me, and I had never seen it before, us getting booed, and that was me learning Philly. But our fans were great all year and there are no issues with them. They want us to be better and we’re going to want them to be there for us. We’re gonna need them, need them to win, and there’s no issue at all. I don’t know what comments you’re referring to. Some things always get blown out of proportion.
Crossing Broad: You’re just talking about the booing specifically, nothing else?
Green: Yeah just in the regular season, it was a couple of things that shocked me. But in terms of players, we’re always going to back our teammates. We’re always going to back our brothers. You never know what someone is going through. I’m not saying (fans) haven’t given these guys a fair chance, because I haven’t been here long enough to say that. But regardless, you don’t turn your back on family. You don’t turn your back on your brothers. We’re gonna be there for them regardless of what happens at the end of the day. There are bigger things in life than basketball.
At this point there needs to be a paragraph that I save on my desktop in a Microsoft Word file and then copy and paste it whenever a booing story takes place. The default behavior shown towards Philly athletes is unconditional support. If you play poorly or half-ass it, you get booed. If you want to clap back at the fans, that’s fine, because it’s a two-way street, but it usually doesn’t help the situation. Typically these guys bottom out, snap out of a funk, start playing well, and then it’s all good.
You play well, you get cheers and support. You don’t play well over a period of time and you get booed and maybe eventually traded. Such is life as a pro athlete.