Overshadowed by Reported Death Threats

 Recently in game two of the Houston Rockets vs Oklahoma City Thunder series, Patrick Beverley had a career night. He posted up numbers that showed his complete game.  Patrick scored 16 points and he added 12 rebounds and 6 assists. Most people have never even heard of this guy but it seems as if he is ready to erupt as a true role player for the Houston Rockets. However, one controversial play has overshadowed his special play in the playoffs.

Patrick was born July 12, 1988. He had a passion for basketball his whole life and always wanted to be an NBA player. He went to college in Arkansas where he lead his team in scoring for the first two years. After his sophomore year, he went to play basketball in Europe after not getting any interest from NBA teams. He played in Europe for two years until he came back to the states in 2009 after being drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers. He was then traded to the Miami Heat in which he was managed to hold his spot on the team up until training camp in 2010. He was cut shortly after training camp. He stayed in the D-League up until this year when he managed to earn a spot on the Houston Rockets. With the Rockets he managed to work his way up to being the back up point guard and even start in the playoffs.

In the playoffs, he shocked many NBA fans and played outstanding. Despite not scoring in double digits since March 24th, he managed to hit double digits twice in both of his first two playoff games. He scored 11 points and added 4 rebounds and 4 assists as well as two steals in game one. He broke out in game two after getting his first start and scored 16 points and he added 12 rebounds and 6 assists as well as getting two assists again.

But then this play happened:

Russell Westbrook finished the game but the next day it was announced that Westbrook would need surgery. Due to this surgery, Westbrook will miss the rest of the playoffs for a team that was projected to meet Miami in the Finals. Also, Russell Westbrook currently holds the record among active players for consecutive games played seeing as he has not missed a game throughout high school to his NBA career. As you can imagine not many people were happy about this possible "dirty" play.

Mitchell Brown, the Oklahoma City Thunder ball boy, took to Twitter to write:

This really angered me. For one, the kid is 17 and is the BALL BOY. The ball boy should have no business trying to threaten any professional basketball player. All he should be doing is passing Kevin Durant the ball during warm ups. Also, he is a seventeen year old high school kid trying to threaten a twenty five year old man. But besides all that, I really dont like that average people such as Mitchell find it ok to threaten players for something that is either out of their reach or for bad play. When I saw this it reminded me of the whole Kyle Williams threat situation in the NFC Championship football game two years ago. Kyle was threatened after he muffed two punts which led to a New York Giants victory.

Overall, I just find it sort of sickening. These players really do get affected by these threats and it could lead to a lot of different things. I look at it as a way of bullying in my eyes because it sort of is the same thing as me making fun of someone for their nose being too big. Hopefully, people will stop doing these things but that is highly unlikely.   

---

Lindrit Shkodra is originally from Diber, Macedonia but lives in Maple Shade, NJ. He is a freshman in the Sports Management program and is currently the General Understudy of the Drexel Sports Management Student Union. On the weekends he works at the Wegmans in Mount Laurel and on the weekdays he interns with Ron Jaworski’s Celebrity Golf Challenge.  Follow Lindrit on Twitter @LindritShkodra.

Connect with Lindrit Shkodra on LinkedIn.