On Monday night, the Sixers broadcast showed a moment involving James Harden and Alan Horwitz, who you know as the famous “Sixth Man” super fan. He’s had season tickets forever and sits right down on the floor, next to the Sixers bench.

Coming out of halftime, Harden was stretching near the scorer’s table, and Horwitz went over to him, which resulted in a sequence that went viral on social media. Here’s the original video, followed by an angle from higher up:

My first reaction was that Alan needs to chill out a bit. He shouldn’t be going up to the players that far from his seat, or walking onto the court, or anything like that. Gotta have boundaries, right?

After putting that out on Twitter, I got a tip that Sixth Man was recently suspended for a game, so I asked around to see what I could find out, and came up with this:

  1. It wasn’t actually a “suspension,” but instead multiple parties agreed that it was best for Sixth Man to sit out a recent game. He instead went to a charity event and then was back in the building for the next game.
  2. The exchange with Harden was not contentious. He wasn’t saying anything like “hey why the fuck didn’t you take that shot?” Nothing like that. Super-secret Crossing Broad sources confirm that it was totally innocuous. He wasn’t being a jackass or anything like that.
  3. Most of the players know Horwitz and understand that he’s a veteran fan. Tobias Harris even appeared in a recent Youtube video celebrating a Horwitz charitable endeavor. Harden, however, is new, and doesn’t really know who the guy is, hence the awkward reaction you saw on television.
  4. Sixth Man has been asked to “tone it down.” That’s the way it was described to me. The powers that be are just a little wary of him fudging the boundaries and crossing the line, literally and/or figuratively, if you know what I’m saying.
  5. There’s never been any malicious behavior here, he’s just up around the coaches and players and getting a little too close for comfort in some instances.

That’s the CliffsNotes version based on what I was able to gather. The video clip blew up on Twitter because people basically think Sixth Man is stepping over the line here, i.e. he’s just a fan and he’s not part of the team. He can cheer and wave a towel and tell DeMar DeRozan that he sucks, but just know where the boundaries are and respect those boundaries. Every single person I talked to reiterated that Sixth Man is exuberant and means well, but sometimes maybe goes a bit overboard. Think of him as our version of Spike Lee or Jack Nicholson, right? If one of those two got up out of their seat to talk to Julius Randle or LeBron James at the scorer’s table, wouldn’t that be a little goofy? Stephen A would be railing about it on First Take. The NBA is very fan-friendly and open and accessible, and sometimes it results in the lines being blurry.

Anyway, Horwitz is a real estate mogul in our region. He is absolutely loaded, and he’s done a lot of fantastic things with his money. Have you seen the Holocaust Memorial at 16th and the Parkway? He donated a few million to that project. He also donates a ton of money to Philadelphia Youth Basketball, some of which is going into building the new 25 million dollar “Sixth Man Center,” which is being erected up along the Roosevelt Boulevard, near the Salvation Army Kroc Center:

 

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This thing is gonna host seven basketball courts, education facilities, and all of that. It’s really cool, and when you pair it with the Kroc Center, you’re have a brilliant combo area up there for youth sport and education.

Right, so anyway, Alan has done a lot of really great things for the city and put his money towards a lot of good causes. He’s been a season ticket holder and super fan for a long time. In the case of last night, and other recent portions of this year, there’s been an effort to reestablish some boundaries.