Shannon Sharpe is not here for Phil Jackson’s recent take on Black Lives Matter during the NBA bubble and called him out on “Undisputed.”
On April 24, Sharpe and his co-host Skip Bayless spent a segment of their show discussing the former Los Angeles Lakers coach’s comments. During a podcast with Rick Rubin, Jackson shared he hasn’t watched an NBA game since 2020 because BLM had taken over with slogans and logos, according to the Daily Mail.
“I watched how the game evolved and decided… when they went into the lockout year, and they did something that was kind of wanky,” Jackson said. “They did a bubble down in Orlando, and all the teams that could qualify went down there. And they had things on their back like, ‘Justice,’ and a little funny thing like, ‘Justice just went to the basket, and equal opportunity knocked him down.’ And somebody had another name for a guy who has… on the back of his jersey; he had some other slogan. So, my grandkids thought that [it] was pretty funny to play up those names.”
The retired NBA coach continued, “I couldn’t watch that. They even had slogans on the floor. On the baseline. It was catering. It was trying to cater to an audience. Or try to bring a certain audience into play. And they didn’t know that it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political.”
After hearing his comments, Sharpe looked toward Bayless with a few words. “Can you tell dumb dumb politics have always been in sports?” he asked. The former NFL player then listed athletes previously involved in politics while participating in sports.
“[Muhammad] Ali, Jack Johnson… Go back in [the] history of time,” Sharpe noted. “Politics have always been in sports. Now, all of a sudden, it turns him off… Come on, Phil. You sound foolish.” Watch the segment below: