Controversies involving athletes could use a reality check in digital world

Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook was recorded by a fan Monday in Utah issuing an expletive-laden threat at a heckler, and after the game he said he stood by what he said.

"I just think there's got to be something done. There's got to be some consequences for those type of people that come to the game just to say and do whatever they want to say," said Westbrook, who said he thought there was a racial component to the heckler's taunts. He added: "And if I had to do it again, I would say the same exact thing."

The Jazz fan in question was interviewed after the game and said he thought the verbal sparring that led up to Westbrook's more heated comments were all part of "fun."

The fan is white. Westbrook is black. There's no video (at least none that has surfaced) of what the fan said exactly before Westbrook's reaction was captured. And Westbrook said he has had problems in the past with Jazz fans in Utah.

It's about as messy and complicated as it gets, which is often what happens as we get more and more details but seldom all of them.

There are cameras and microphones everywhere, and the means of distributing what is picked up on those devices creates widespread and nearly instantaneous reactions.

Sometimes, as in the case with Westbrook's interaction, what an athlete says is not in question. The debate comes over whether the response was appropriate.

In other cases, though, an even trickier gray area emerges: Did an athlete really say what we think he or she said?

An example of that also emerged Monday, when a microphone picked up what sounded to some like Toronto Maple Leafs player Morgan Rielly using an expletive followed by an anti-gay slur. The NHL investigated and concluded that Rielly did not, in fact, use a slur. But how many people read the first story and not the second?

The ability to capture athletes (or anyone) at their worst — or at least most heated — moments is a powerful tool. Recording brings power to the powerless, altering how we have been conditioned to believe the versions of stories presented by people in charge.

It can hold people accountable, exposing when things are flat-out wrong or at least messier than image-handlers would like us to believe they are.

But these tools also tend to collide with our insistence on labeling something 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong — and doing it as fast as possible before moving on to the next thing.

Reality has a lot more gray area than the pace of modern life would prefer. I can see why Westbrook said what he said, and as much as I'm not surprised that he said it the ability to watch and hear him say it adds a layer to the story.

I can see why a fan would think he crossed a line. I can see how they're both wrong, how they're both right, and how the tension of high-stakes sports plays out between athletes and fans. The punishment in both cases reflects that: Westbrook was fined $25,000 by the NBA, while the Jazz permanently banned the fan.

I don't know if these kinds or interactions are happening more frequently than the used to, or if we're just seeing more of them because almost everyone in the world has a camera with them at all times now.

In world where everyone is recording their lives to watch them later, sometimes it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't. It's there for posterity, even as we forget about it quickly and move on to the next recorded controversy — probably coming Wednesday.