Though NBA players today are great at managing their public personas, they still need a safe space where they can let loose and be themselves. Any reporters and insiders who are allowed to be close to the team understand this and respect the sanctity of it.
Advertisement
It’s not often that fans get too close with the players outside of maybe getting an autograph courtside or seeing them at a community event. As Kendrick Perkins said on the latest episode of Road Trippin’, back in his Celtics days they actually had to ride with fans who may or may not have known what they were in for.
“We used to have season ticket holders that would ride the planes with us when we would go on two-day road trips or three-day road trips to two cities,” Perk said. “And so you gotta realize, the N-word was thrown around naturally throughout the locker room, on the plane, loud as hell.”
This was a team with Kevin Garnett on it after all, so you can probably imagine what it sounded like.
Then-Celtics head coach Doc Rivers is no fool, and so he knew that there would be some backlash if fans overheard anything inappropriate. Perk said that Doc gathered the team and asked them to tone it down when fans were on the plane, but by the sound of it, his plea went about as well as when Dave Chappelle’s character in Half Baked was booed off the stage after admitting his addiction in rehab.
“Man, when I tell you everybody in the locker room let Doc have it,” Perk said, “Doc was like, ‘Oh s***,’ he said, ‘You know what? Y’all do y’all. I’m gonna control it, I’mma handle it.'”
Doc went directly to the season ticket holders and made sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.
“[Doc] let them know, like, ‘Hey listen, y’all about to walk onto this plane, y’all going to hear things, see things, don’t be offended, this is just who they are.’ It was just real. It was like if you’re walking into our sanctuary,” Perkins recalled.
The rest of Perk’s podcast mates chimed in to support the idea that the plane and the locker room have different expectations when it comes to player behavior.
Allie Clifton said that when she got her start as an NBA sideline reporter 15 years ago, a big part of her first interview was her being prepped with the idea that these were sacred spaces that she was being allowed into.
“Understanding the respect level, and it’s basically tunnel vision,” she explained. “They’re not disrespecting, they are authentically being themselves, this is their comfort, etc. You don’t see anything, you don’t hear anything, and it was whether or not they could trust me in a space like that. It’s a big thing and it’s a real thing.”
Richard Jefferson is a former player, but once he moved into his post-playing career, even he was subject to those same rules. He spoke about how they did an episode of Road Trippin’ on the Cavs’ team plane but weren’t allowed up front with the players. Instead, the players came to the back of the plane one by one to be interviewed.
That arrangement meant that the trainers and other staff were imposed upon, and so the idea of doing plane episodes was dropped because they also needed to have their space respected.
“The players then wanted to respect [the trainers’] space,” he said. “We couldn’t go into their space and record and have them stay up and listen to us and do whatever we do.”
“So that was the end of the plane recording,” Jefferson continued, “because the media couldn’t come up to our space, we couldn’t come back to the trainers’ space any more, and that’s why we stopped, that was the end of Road Trippin’ on a plane.”
Sometimes a hot mic will pick up a NSFW thing during a game, but most fans probably don’t know the extent of how players act when they don’t have to worry about being recorded. Maybe letting fans on the team plane wasn’t the best idea.
