Dillon Brooks was ejected less than five minutes into his first game with the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night for a flagrant foul 2 to the groin of Indiana Pacers center Daniel Theis.
Brooks said he didn't mean to strike Theis and chalked the ejection up to his reputation.
"I tried to navigate a screen," Brooks told reporters after the Rockets' 122-103 victory in their preseason opener. "I might have tapped him below the waist, but he got right back up. I don't know. It's weird that every time it happens to me, I get picked on. I guess it's part of reputation."
Brooks was asked whether he feels targeted by referees.
"What's the name? What's my name? My name is Dillon the Villain, so I guess," he responded.
Brooks, then with the Memphis Grizzlies, gave a similar explanation after being ejected for a flagrant foul 2 in Game 3 of last season's playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers, when he struck LeBron James in the groin.
"The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain and then that just creates a whole different persona on me," Brooks said in April.
The Rockets owned a 13-10 lead with 7:27 remaining in the opening quarter Tuesday when Theis set a screen on Brooks, who was guarding Indiana's Bennedict Mathurin. Brooks struck Theis in the groin with his left hand and was whistled for the flagrant 2 foul by referee Mitch Ervin.
"For a flagrant 2 foul like that, you got to know if a person is doing it on purpose or intention," Brooks said. "That's really going at who I am as a person. That ref, Mitch, that just shows that he just doesn't know who I am as a person. He's just going off what's been said."
The Grizzlies opted against attempting to re-sign Brooks in free agency this summer because of his often-antagonistic antics, among other factors. He subsequently agreed to a four-year, $80 million contract with the Rockets.
Rockets coach Ime Udoka acknowledged there is a perception around Brooks.
"We love his aggressiveness and physicality," Udoka said, according to the Houston Chronicle. "But reputations carry in the NBA, and people will look for certain things. You got to monitor that better."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.