You know the difference when you see it.
During the course of any team’s quest for success, it will encounter opponents who give fits with its play on the court, but often those players don’t do anything to rile up bad emotions, so fans tip their caps and leave not much worse for the wear even if their team gets beat. Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray comes to mind here.
But there’s another category of player that, with their activities on the court, cause them to become Public Enemy No. 1. James Harden, Chris Paul and Paul George, anyone? Shoot, sometimes players don’t even have to be stars for this to happen, for them to reach villain status. Vernon Maxwell is still remembered in Salt Lake City for his antics while with the Houston Rockets more than 25 years ago.
Entering the Utah Jazz’s first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies this year, Memphis wing Dillon Brooks wasn’t talked about much at all as a potential villain. Sure, he had that infamous flopping incident against the Utah Utes in 2017 while in college at Oregon, and yes, he’s known to get under opponents’ skin, but he hasn’t necessarily built a bad reputation over his four years in the NBA.
After Game 1 Sunday night, however, he’s certainly not well-liked in Salt Lake City. Yes, he lit the Jazz up for 31 points, but that really has nothing to do with it.
The drama started early as Brooks and the incredibly mild-mannered Mike Conley (the guy has literally zero technical fouls to his name in 14 seasons in the NBA) started jawing in the opening minutes of the game. Then it came to a head ... butt in the second quarter as Brooks sneakily shoved Conley with his dome.
In the third quarter, Brooks was finally assessed a technical for taunting.
All of it left Jazz fans on Twitter thoroughly disliking him, and it is pretty clear that he may have already reached villain status (Memphis fans, of course, were enjoying it).
For his part, Conley, Brooks’ former teammate, was complimentary of him after Sunday’s game.