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Lil Wayne Disses Thunder Arena
An NBA playoffs ticket dispute prompted Lil Wayne to claim he felt “unwanted” at
The dispute reportedly started when Thunder players Kevin Durant and James Harden offered the rapper tickets for a June 2 Western Conference playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs. Lil Wayne’s rep contacted the team regarding courtside seats.
A Thunder official turned down the request because the game was sold out – as has been the case for Thunder home games all season – and the requested seats were already taken.
The rapper took to Twitter May 31, saying he was “denied by the team to be in their arena.”
Lil Wayne later said, “It’s the players stepping up but of course the players aren’t white. I don’t want to be sitting there on behalf of you and I’m sitting next to a [person] that’s like ‘I don’t want this [guy] sitting next to me.’ [Forget] you… I’m in Forbes,” he added, laughing.
He added that a manager advised him to stay away from the facility in the future, but “I never say never.”
Team spokesman Dan Mahoney told USA Today the performer was welcome to attend a game as long as he has a ticket like everyone else.
“We offered him other locations and probably could have accommodated him. We’ve had other celebrities courtside when it was available. In this case, for a playoff game, there were none available,” he said.
Thunder star forward Durant said the incident was unfortunate.
“It was just a misunderstanding. We were sold out of tickets, I heard, and we didn’t come through,” he said. “He knows a few of us on the team and he knows it’s nothing like that.
“We offered him tickets to tonight but he had to do something. He’s a superstar in his own right, so he can’t just pick up and go to a game.”