DALLAS — We've all seen the video: Suns superstar Kevin Durant confronts two Dallas Mavericks fans who called him "a b*tch" as he runs onto the court before tip-off at the American Airlines Center on Thursday night.
The video of the incident, captured by WFAA's Jonah Javad, went viral overnight, garnering millions of views.
Then the Internet does what it does, and made a meme out of the duo -- almost immediately. Part of the butt of the joke? That the male half of the friends in question mentioned in this caught-on-camera explanation for his behavior that he hosted a sports podcast -- a reveal that drew Durant's immediate disinterest in carrying the conversation forward.
Now, thanks to "The Ben and Skin Show" on 97.1-FM KEGL The Freak, we know more about the man in the video. His name is Luke Brawner, and he spoke to the Dallas radio show Friday afternoon. Over the course of his appearance, he gave his side of the interaction, attempting to provide some insight into why he and his friend were attending the game, and more intriguingly, why the notion of him hosting a sports podcast ever came up during the interaction in the first place.
"I don't want to justify anything that was said," Brawner told the radio hosts. "But I do want to provide some context."
It's a lot to unpack, so buckle in.
Brawner told Ben and Skin that he and the woman were at the game in the first place as an homage to her brother (and his best friend), a man named Nathan. According to Brawner, Nathan died a few years ago -- at 2:22 -- and Nathan's memorial was held that year on Feb. 22 (read: 2/22).
Because Nathan was a big sports fan, Brawner said he and his friend decided to attend Thursday's Suns game when the Mavs schedule dropped earlier this year -- specifically because it landed on Feb. 22 (again: 2/22).
The pair, Brawner said, agreed to go "for Nathan."
Now, to the viral moment. Brawner confirmed it was his late friend's sister who made the expletive comment towards Durant, and he told Ben and Skin that the Suns superstar was completely justified to respond how he did. He added that he felt Durant handled himself with class.
The part where the sports podcast comes into play is, apparently, this: Nathan was a regular guest on Brawner's sports podcast, Yay! Go, Sports!, which hasn't published an episode since October 2018. What he didn't get to share with Durant, but he did share with Ben and Skin, was Nathan would apparently often make similar expletive comments about Durant whenever his name came up on the show.
Which, while Brawner said the moment was unplanned, perhaps explained why Nathan's sister yelled what she yelled?
When Durant confronted Brawner and his friend about their shout, Brawner said Durant asked why they said what they said.
"I said, 'Do you really want to know?'" Brawner said. "And he said, 'Yes, tell me why I said that.'"
That's when Brawner said he attempted to share the whole story and its details, podcast and all, which Durant quickly decided he wasn't all that interested in.
In the end, Brawner and his friend were not kicked out of the arena -- because Durant actively stopped security from doing so, in an act Brawner told Ben and Skin was greatly appreciated.
Still: Did he learn a lesson from the moment? It sounds like he maybe did!
"It was just a joke to us, but we forget the humanity of the person on the other end of that joke," Brawner said. "I'm used to seeing this person on highlight reels. I'm used to seeing this person's face, and I can yell at the TV all day long, but you sort of forget when you remove the humanity from that person, that your words still really matter."
Brawner added that he tried to reach out to Durant's publicist Friday morning to try to reiterate that there was "no ill-intent there," that he was appreciative of not being kicked out of the game and to try to once again get the full context of the story out there.
That said, Brawner added too that it wasn't necessarily a moment he horribly regretted.
"Ironically, I do think that the moment did honor my friend," Brawner said. "Wherever people go after you die, wherever he is out in the ether, he was laughing -- hard -- and loving it. We had an amazing night. It didn't ruin our night in any way. But it was wild. I did not imagine so many folks would hear about it."
As for the real action of the night, Dallas went on to beat Phoenix, 123-113. Durant scored 23 points, grabbed six rebounds and dished out one assist.
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