Friday night professional LeBron James apologist Shannon Sharpe got into a miniature dust-up with several Memphis Grizzlies players as well as Tee Morant, the father of star guard Ja Morant.
The incident took place in the second quarter of Friday night’s game between the Grizzlies and it the Lakers. Sharpe yelled to guard Dillon Brooks that he was too small to guard his man-crush Lebron. The two exchanged expletives after which Sharpe allegedly said to Brooks “ You don’t want these problems” More roofing ensued and security had to step and separate the involved parties. As that was happening, Sharpe and Tee Morant engaged in a brief but boisterous verbal exchange with the Undisputed co-host repeatedly saying “I bet you won’t!”
Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and Sharpe and the elder Morant were seen appearing to hash out the beef. While it seems, at least for the time being, nothing negative came from this row, the animated bravado of Sharpe’s response was diametrically opposed to what he displayed when confronted with the blatant, pointed disrespect of his Undisputed co-host, Skip Bayless.
While not advoacting a violent response from the NFL legend toward his Methusala-esque colleague, however there was a biting, , tactful and professional way of admonishing him that was preferable to the meek display of submission he put on for the world to see. Sharpe has a history of directing vitriol at those who look like him. In the not-to-distant past, he referred to Kevin Durant as a garden utensil as a thinly veiled euphemism for a soft man.
The Memphis Grizzlies players themselves, particularly Dillion Brooks, are not free from at least some degree of culpability in the incident. Brooks’ comments about the dust-up after the game, in which he referred to Sharpe as a “pedestrian” and a “blogger” showed a level of disrespect and hubris that not only makes it easy to dislike this Memphis Grizzlies team but is the source of Sharpe’s stinging criticisms of the club in recent weeks that boiled over in the aforementioned incident. Granted, Shannon Sharpe says scores of things that I ardently disagree with, however, it cannot be argued that he is among the greatest to ever hit the gridiron, and considering what he has accomplished with his work in media, post-retirement is certainly not a “blogger.”
As history has bore itself out that Sharpe’s smoke requests seem to begin and end with those who most closely resemble himself, the question must be posed if that were Brian Windhordst or Woj, barking at him would Brooks and the other players bowed up at them the way they did Sharpe?
