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Warriors hook up 6-year-old victim of ticket fraud with VIP treatment

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer
Warriors star Stephen Curry meets 6-year-old fan Isaiah Simpson before Sunday's game against the Grizzlies. (Photo via @warriors)
Warriors star Stephen Curry meets 6-year-old fan Isaiah Simpson before Sunday’s game against the Grizzlies. (Photo via @warriors)

After a ticketing mishap cost one Georgia family a chance to catch the Stephen Curry Show when it came to town earlier this month, the Golden State Warriors did a very cool thing to ensure that a 6-year-old fan got the chance to watch his favorite player, up close and personal.

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First, the bummerific story of how a hard-earned reward for young Isaiah Simpson turned into an evening of heartbreak at Philips Arena:

Isaiah loves the Warriors, and especially their two-time MVP. His mother, Alex McDonald, told CBS46 in Atlanta that she promised to take him to see the Warriors when they played the Atlanta Hawks “if he brought his grades up and was a good boy at home,” saving up for more than six months to make that happen for him … only to be thwarted upon arriving at Philips Arena:

Monday with the Warriors in town, Alex bought great seats on StubHub with a price tag of nearly $600. She took off work that day and drove over an hour into the city with her two boys.

“We got there early so we could try and get an autograph,” Alex recounted. However Alex, Isaiah, and his baby brother Trey couldn’t even get in the door.

“The lady told us that our tickets weren’t scanning,” Alex recalled. At first she wasn’t worried.

“It’s a huge company and I had a guarantee so I didn’t think anything of it,” Alex explained. More than an hour later she was still waiting outside Philips Arena for StubHub to tell her what the problem was.

“The lady calls and she says ‘I do see that there was an error’ and my kids are crying they want to go inside they want to get something to eat,” Alex stated. With the game almost over she decided to leave.

“I start crying because I really wanted to see the game,” Isaiah told CBS46.

Upon discovering the error, StubHub did give McDonald a full refund plus a $100 credit for the inconvenience she and her sons experienced. That’s reasonable enough, but it doesn’t make up for the missed chance to see your hero in the flesh, you know?

And that’s where the Warriors, and some of Isaiah’s fellow Georgians, came in, according to CBS46:

A 6-year-old Snellville boy who missed a basketball game after a mix-up with his tickets is getting the make-good of a lifetime.

Photos shared with CBS46 showed Isaiah Simpson galavanting around the Oakland area as he awaited a Golden State Warriors game. CBS46 viewers and the Golden State Warriors paid for the boy to take a trip to see his idol, Steph Curry, and the Warriors in action.

Two days after reports of the family being turned away in Atlanta began to gain traction on social media, the Warriors invited the family to come out to Oakland to attend Sunday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Oracle Arena. Isaiah got to meet head coach Steve Kerr and all the Warriors’ players, including Curry, whose No. 30 Isaiah got shaved into one side of his head, with the Warriors’ Bay Bridge logo on the other side.

Isaiah got to hang out on the court during the players’ pregame warmups, and even to throw Steph the pass before his now-famous hallway shot before heading back to the locker room.

“Everything happens for a reason, right?” Warriors center Zaza Pachulia said to Isaiah after introducing himself before the game. “Look where you’re at right now!”

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After watching the Warriors knock off the Grizzlies, 106-94, behind 31 points from Klay Thompson and a 21-point, 11-assist double-double from Curry, Isaiah got to hang in the winners’ locker room and meet Thompson, Kevin Durant, David West and the rest of the Dubs.

As disappointing as being shut out of the first chance to see Steph and company might have been, Isaiah and his mom got a heck of a makeup call on Sunday night.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!