The line between passionate fandom and harassment became terrifyingly real for the mother of Houston Rockets forward Tari Eason. As her son battled a brutal shooting slump and the team stumbled through an inconsistent March stretch, Teroya Eason found herself on the receiving end of something no parent should ever have to read: death threats. She tweeted a relief-filled message following the Rockets’ narrow 123-122 win over the Heat.

“I’m so glad because I did not want to deal with the death threats tonight🤷🏾‍♀️” Eason’s mother wrote on X. While she didn’t spell out the exact source of the threats, her posts from the night before paint a clear picture of the pressure building around her son.

Ime Udoka had shaken up the starting lineup, benching Eason in favor of Reed Sheppard against the Atlanta Hawks, a move that paid off with a win. Eason did snap a streak of 23 consecutive missed three-point attempts during that game, but the damage to his confidence and public perception had already been done. In March alone, he went seven straight games without making a shot from deep.

The Rockets entered this turbulent stretch as one of the West’s better teams, sitting at 43-27, fourth in the conference, with a playoff berth firmly in their sights. Every stumble carries weight for a team with genuine postseason ambitions, and every player’s cold spell becomes an outlet for fan frustration.

This made the slump all the more jarring because of what Eason had been before the All-Star break. Carrying a team-best clip from three-point range, he was Houston’s most reliable shooter: a crucial floor-spacing weapon for a Rockets offense that depends on driving lanes for Alperen Sengun and others. When that shooting disappeared, it didn’t just hurt Eason’s numbers, but it tightened the spacing the entire offense relies on. Even in that phase, Teroya constantly encouraged her son with some tongue-in-cheek comments.

“My baby couldn’t hit Jordan Poole with Draymond Green right now!!!! that sh– almost broke the backboard!!! where are all the basketball gods when I need them I’ve been a fairly good person lmao Come on Peso!!! That’s OK keep working hard, baby! Nobody can take that from you!” a tweet from Teroya that had over 1.4 million views.

For those unfamiliar with the reference: in October 2022, Green punched Poole in the face during a Dubs practice after the two got into a verbal altercation, making “hitting Jordan Poole with Draymond Green” a cultural shorthand for a stationary, unmissable target. Teroya’s joke landed hard, however, Eason couldn’t even hit the easiest shot imaginable.

Her son finally connected on his third shot on Friday, giving Teroya much-needed relief. But the tweet of her cheeky Draymond Green-Jordan Poole meme apparently backfired. She had to clarify her longstanding humorous frustration with her son’s shooting slumps, as some fans thought she was engagement farming by using the former Warriors teammates’ names. But that was not the case.

“Please relax I’m not farming🤣 I’ve been crazy a long time. I did not just start tonight. I just said something earlier and apparently a lot of people thought it was funny. I was dead serious. I guess the block is hot right now, but I’m pretty much always being me. No gimmicks.💙” Teroya wrote on X. A screenshot of her similar tweets followed this caption from 2023 to 2024.

Sadly, the Eason family’s ordeal is not an isolated incident. The abuse directed at athletes’ family members has become a troubling and recurring pattern in professional sports, one where the anonymity of social media emboldens fans to escalate criticism into outright threats.

Tari Eason’s mother asked a ‘lethal shooter’ for help

Teroya is one of the most vocal hoop supporters on social media. But even she couldn’t understand how Tari Eason ended up with one of the worst slumps in NBA history. Before the All-Star break, the Rockets’ forward would have a team-best score of 46.8% from three-pointers. But March has been a completely different story. That’s why Teroya reached out to a famous trainer who even fixed rapper JaRule’s jumper.

“When you gonna be in Houston, I might need a favor, brother,” she tweeted at Chris Matthews, aka Lethal Shooter. Again, some fans trolled her, but she stood firm in her beliefs. “I don’t understand why you guys think this is a cook??? y’all are so scared. I’m not,” she wrote. “He knows he’s not shooting well. The man said he made Ja Rule into a shooter in two hours today, so my son should be Steph Curry by the playoffs. I dropped the comment trying to see some.”

A mother was trying to help his son’s woes. But the trolling went too far.