Westbrook hits on a touchy subject

Russell Westbrook is fed up, and he should be.

Fans of all ages have completely forgotten how to act at professional sporting events. And someone needs to do something about it. The latest example came Tuesday night when a kid sitting courtside at the Thunder-Nuggets game in Denver reached out and hit Westbrook on the arm.

“For all fans, though, there’s too much leeway for the fans to be able to touch the players and get away with it, and then you can’t react and do the things that we need to do to protect ourselves,” Westbrook told The Oklahoman. “But I can’t do nothing. What am I going to do, hop in the stands? But there has to be some type of rule or some type of boundaries set that you can’t allow that.”

Now there are some that will say, “Hey, it’s just a kid. This is no big deal!”

But I’m here to tell you that it is, because things like this have been going on far too often at sporting events.

“He hit me,” the Oklahoma City star explained, “So I told his dad, ‘Be careful, man, you can’t have your son just hitting random people.’ I don’t know him, he don’t know me. So, just letting him know, ‘You’ve just got to control your kids.’ ”

Westbrook is a father to three, so maybe his paternal instincts kicked in on Tuesday night. But no matter how you look at it, it’s not his job to educate someone else’s child, especially while he’s at work doing his job.

However, it is interesting that Westbrook was the one who took the high road, given that he has a long history of “interactions” with adult fans.

Last year, a fan in Denver boldly walked up on Westbrook on the court at the end of a game and got in his face, which led to Westbrook giving the man a “slight nudge.” Then there was the situation in Utah, in which Westbrook swiped at a fan’s phone for recording him as he walked to the locker room.

Last year, the Deseret News in Utah profiled how rowdy Jazz fans have had multiple run-ins with NBA players.

“The crowd is loud. They don’t care what they say to you,” Warriors forward Kevin Durant said about the fan base in Utah.

And apparently, this isn’t a new trend in Utah.

“Couldn’t believe it. More Nwords than probably (they) had Black people in the whole city, so it was a really racial situation and people say anything now because there’s no consequences for it,” said former NBA player Matt Barnes to Colin Cowherd when discussing the racial slurs he heard during the Warriors’ Western Conference semifinals series against the Jazz back in 2007.

To some, the onus will always be on the athletes, that having to deal with obnoxious fans is just part of your job description.

But despite how you may feel, professional athletes are still human beings that go to work each and every day, just like you.

You would have thought that the Malice at the Palace would have scared fans straight, especially after seeing a six-foot-11, 255-pound Jermaine O’Neal lay a guy out with a right cross.

But I guess people have amnesia, which is why the next time something like that happens, I won’t have any sympathy for them. Because no matter how much security leagues add at games, or whatever new policies can be implemented, it still comes down to one thing. Fans need to act like they have some sense or deal with the consequences.

Act tough if you want to. This isn’t child’s play.