By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly Staff
Wednesday's opening night game for the Philadelphia 76ers was full of excitement and hype as the team took the court for the first time in the 2016 season. Besides the game of basketball kicking off on Wednesday, something more controversial happened as most Philadelphians are already aware of.
A fan, now identified on Philly.com as urologist Richard Harkaway, was seen on television flipping the bird on both hands to Thunder PG Russell Westbrook as he got fouled for the and-one.
Moments later, security took Harkaway away and ejected him from the game. On Thursday night, Harkaway's story got interesting as he went to Facebook to air his grievances claiming that Westbrook told him to "sit down f–ing fat boy" when he got up to boo. It escalated from there, and that's where the situation happened.
Fortunately, Harkaway issued a public statement of apology to Westbrook via Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com.
76ers fan Richard Harkaway apologizes for his obscene gesture toward Russell Westbrook and says he was provoked: https://t.co/BsrZ2bRoer pic.twitter.com/bdB2CvFnFn
— Jonathan Tannenwald (@jtannenwald) October 27, 2016
It;s good that Harkaway issued a public statement to apologize to Westbrook, however this just adds to the always decreasing reputation of Philadelphia sports fans, and takes out another page in Philadelphia fan lore.
Not a proud moment in Philly Sports history, especially on the opening night of basketball season.
