Basketball Fiend

Apparently, Mark Cuban and Kenyon Martin weren’t the only ones who got heated on Monday night. Carmelo Anthony’s fiancè, TV personality LaLa Vazquez, was ejected from Game 4 at the American Airlines Center for mixing it up with a group of Mavericks fans.

Today Vazquez released a statement to TMZ, stating that she was being racially threatened and verbally attacked by a group of Mavericks fans and that is why she lost her cool.

Here’s the full statement from Vazquez:

“Obviously the play-off games bring out the best and the worst in fans but what happened on Monday night with the racial slurs/threats, verbal attacks on my son and physical attacks to myself by irate fans was unacceptable. The fans were totally out of control.

What the cameras captured was me defending myself and didn’t show the abuse that was taking place.”

Whether she was taunted or not, Vazquez has to realize that - as a player’s wife and as a professional - she has to hold it together in that kind of situation. The last thing the Nuggets need is another hothead representing them. They have enough hotheads on the team as it is.

On the other hand, the NBA has to do a better job of ensuring that WAGs (wives and girlfriends), friends, and family members of players are better protected at away games. It’s unfair of the league to assume that personalities like LaLa and Kenyon Martin’s mother can fend for themselves in a hostile environment, with hostile fans yelling at them constantly.

As you can see in the video below - courtesy of NBCFW.com - Vazquez was extremely agitated by the situation and lashed out both physically and verbally at her (alleged) attackers. One woman in particular, a blonde-haired woman in a black dress seen toward the end of the video, seemed to raise LaLa’s ire. Since we don’t have footage of the moments that preceded LaLa’s outburst, it’s impossible to know exactly what that lady said or did. But it’s safe to assume that she wasn’t exactly complimenting Vazquez’s outfit.

Video after the jump.

As an outsider lacking direct knowledge of the way these kinds of things actually run, it seems like the best solution for the league is to create designated sections for friends and family of the opposing team. Once isolated, the league - or the opposing team - could be mandated to supply an extra element of security to that section. Say, two or three extra security guards dedicated to making sure nobody harrasses the friends and fam.

Yeah, it comes at an added expense, but how valuable is it to the league to avoid embarrassing situations like the one involving Vazquez or the incident from 2006 involving Antonio’s Davis’ wife, Kendra, in which Davis rushed into the stands to come to her defense?

In a perfect world, fans wouldn’t berate the friends and family of players and the friends and family of players wouldn’t fly off the handle and verbally - or physically - attack fans. But it’s not a perfect world. Measures should be taken to limit these type of situations.

Mark Cuban knows this. Let’s hope David Stern follows his lead.

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