Wizards Broadcasters, Surely punishment incoming

[Bornstellar]

I agree that this was likely a mixup and the announcer thinking his father was the former player Kevin Porter. It makes no sense to make the comment he did in reference to KPJs real father live on air. Just an unfortunate mistake/coincidence imo, unless they have a history of making on air comments like this I would let it slide

[Ruzious]

Question ... who in this thread heard about KPJ's father's involvement in the fatal shooting of a 14 year old girl before this thread?

And this was a local broadcast in the DC area. Guessing maybe 2% of the viewers knew about it. Probably less.

[azcatz11]

This whole thing is hilarious. The delivery of the analyst is literally perfect...it literally makes one think he's actually talking about his dad shooting someone which is messed up in itself.

Yeah, not sure why I find this funny, but it's like dark humor in a way I guess

[leolozon]

The comment wouldn't even make sense as killing a teenage girl by accident could never be thought out as "Pulling the trigger at the right time.", ever.

The joke only makes sense if it was in self defense.

[ForeverTFC]

This "woke warriors with their cancel culture are so sensitive and will lead to downfall of manhood" shtick is getting so tired.

Yes, context matters. And the context is this: a professional commentator either:
a) knowingly referenced a player's father and his history with gun violence
b) incorrectly assumed family history which had the unintended consequence of referencing player's father and his history with gun violence

Is a worse than b? Yeah, by a lot. But did he mess up in both scenarios? Yeah. Even in scenario b, he still showcased incompetence. Are we going to pretend consequences for incompetence in the workplace are a new thing popularized by "woke SJWs" with twitter accounts? You can debate the severity of punishment - if he made a mistake, no way the guy should be fired - but you can't debate that he made a mistake, which turned out to be a pretty meaningful mistake in this situation.

When Chapelle makes a joke, he's doing his job. Folks can think its distasteful but fact of the matter is that he's doing his job. Cancelling a comedian for things they say makes very little sense to me. Regardless of the explanation for this incident, the commentator failed at his job. It's very much his job description to check these things. That's the context. That's why you can't go around saying "cancel culture this, cancel culture that" in every situation.

[Pointgod]

Sounds like a mix up. Apologize and move on.

[Ice Trae]

Sounds like an innocent mistake to me. Doesn’t seem to have a shady past or anything plus he’s been with the Wizards for a long time. Weird for him to risk all of that. I mean come on, who in this thread aside from Rockets and Cavs fans actually knew what KPJ’s dad did? Not trying to excuse the guy for his mixup, but I’m not surprised why it happened

[draftnightsuit]

There is absolutely no chance he was talking about his father and what happened. This is a case of mistaken identity. He should have looked it up, but this is very obviously an honest mistake.

Read on Twitter

The ironic thing in all of this are the people who are calling for this guy's head, they themselves not knowing there was a good Kevin Porter who used to play in the league.

I don't understand why Lebron feels the need to react so quickly to things especially as a person with his stature. I mean wait a few days(hell a few hours) and then react because this has the potential now to make him look stupid and you know there are people(his most extreme haters) waiting to pounce on this. Curry is one of the other faces of the league and you don't see him do this like Lebron does.

Lebron has the mind of a 14 year-old girl. He even types like one with all the exclamation points and emojis.

He doesn’t care about looking stupid because he lacks self awareness and he knows he won’t be held accountable for it anyway.

[Boselecta]

Not trying to make excuses for the guy but it’s obviously a mistake. Without context first hearing this I just assumed the wizards or rockets had an ex player named Kevin porter, which they did. Yes he gets paid to do this for a living but I highly doubt he knows KPJs history. And be honest if you guys were in his position I’m sure you would only really know player history of the team you worked for.

[xAIRNESSx]

I have this new theory that Family Guy ruined the 'we can joke about absolutely anything' idea. And don't get me wrong, I loved Family Guy.. then they had a really disturbing domestic violence cut away and I just sort of stopped watching.

Yes, we can joke about some things. Other things, especially when you're a professional commentator should be left alone. Have some **** ing respect for people.

That being said, I really hope it was a mistaken identity thing.

Unless someone is on the right in the US or maybe a comedian, I'd probably argue the opposite. If you're in the mainstream centre or on the left, there is immense pressure to be overly considerate of your word choice at risk of being cancelled.

[xAIRNESSx]

My point is very simple: a person is innocent until proven guilty.

As I said above, let the guys defend themselves before jumping into assumptions on what they might have said.

Your best case scenario here is that this announcer did zero research and just assumed a player for a visiting team was related to a guy that played for the home team 40 years ago. A fact he likely didn’t reference or verify at any other point until literally the last shot of the game. Just call a spade a spade, dude.

Well said. The best defense for this is "he didn't do his job".

There's 2 scenarios here. Either he decided to risk his job for a joke, knowing the history of KPJ's father or he made a mistake. If this announcer doesn't have a history of this type of behavior, why wouldn't you give him the benefit of the doubt?

[Duffman100]

I have this new theory that Family Guy ruined the 'we can joke about absolutely anything' idea. And don't get me wrong, I loved Family Guy.. then they had a really disturbing domestic violence cut away and I just sort of stopped watching.

Yes, we can joke about some things. Other things, especially when you're a professional commentator should be left alone. Have some **** ing respect for people.

That being said, I really hope it was a mistaken identity thing.

Unless someone is on the right in the US or maybe a comedian, I'd probably argue the opposite. If you're in the mainstream centre or on the left, there is immense pressure to be overly considerate of your word choice at risk of being cancelled.

Complaining about imminent cancellation or "cancel culture" is becoming so much more prominent and dominant in our society that actual cancellations.

[Doranku]

i’m a big anti woke and anti sensitivity type guy but this is messed up. broadcaster should be fired for sure. f that guy

only excuse is if he didn’t know about the father but i just don’t see how that could be true

Do you think those guys look up every opponent players past before commentating a game? Some of them like Marv Albert didn't even know what was actually happening at the time they were talking.

Seriously though. Is it really a commentator's job to know the personal life story of every player in the league?

[xAIRNESSx]

I have this new theory that Family Guy ruined the 'we can joke about absolutely anything' idea. And don't get me wrong, I loved Family Guy.. then they had a really disturbing domestic violence cut away and I just sort of stopped watching.

Yes, we can joke about some things. Other things, especially when you're a professional commentator should be left alone. Have some **** ing respect for people.

That being said, I really hope it was a mistaken identity thing.

Unless someone is on the right in the US or maybe a comedian, I'd probably argue the opposite. If you're in the mainstream centre or on the left, there is immense pressure to be overly considerate of your word choice at risk of being cancelled.

Complaining about imminent cancellation or "cancel culture" is becoming so much more prominent and dominant in our society that actual cancellations.

Doesn't mean the threat of being cancelled isn't a real thing.

[Duffman100]

Unless someone is on the right in the US or maybe a comedian, I'd probably argue the opposite. If you're in the mainstream centre or on the left, there is immense pressure to be overly considerate of your word choice at risk of being cancelled.

Complaining about imminent cancellation or "cancel culture" is becoming so much more prominent and dominant in our society that actual cancellations.

Doesn't mean the threat of being cancelled isn't a real thing.

Okay....?

[Jazz9]

I don't believe for a second he made a reference to a man shooting a 14yo girl.
I just can't believe that.

[Lockdown504090]

i’m a big anti woke and anti sensitivity type guy but this is messed up. broadcaster should be fired for sure. f that guy

only excuse is if he didn’t know about the father but i just don’t see how that could be true

Do you think those guys look up every opponent players past before commentating a game? Some of them like Marv Albert didn't even know what was actually happening at the time they were talking.

Seriously though. Is it really a commentator's job to know the personal life story of every player in the league?

yes, it is. at least the main ones. Thats what those papers in front of them are for, stats and personal stories. Thats actually what they get paid to do.

[ForeverTFC]

i’m a big anti woke and anti sensitivity type guy but this is messed up. broadcaster should be fired for sure. f that guy

only excuse is if he didn’t know about the father but i just don’t see how that could be true

Do you think those guys look up every opponent players past before commentating a game? Some of them like Marv Albert didn't even know what was actually happening at the time they were talking.

Seriously though. Is it really a commentator's job to know the personal life story of every player in the league?

Yeah, if you're going to talk about it. If the guy is going to make a reference to some player in the 70s, you don't think it would be reasonable to look it up? You don't think he'd ask "hey, is Porter Jr's father that Porter?" This is such an odd statement. It's a commentator's job to know what he's taking about because his entire job is talking about things.

[High 5]

I think it’s obvious he wasn’t referencing his actual father. Anyone who believes that at this point just wants to be outraged.

Now if he went into the game thinking the Wizards player was his dad and was waiting for the opportunity to reference that then it was an incredibly dumb mistake. But it’s also possible he just made that connection in the moment without really thinking. Either way he apologized and that should be the end of it. Shame on LeBron for yet again rushing to Twitter to condemn someone in front of millions without having an understanding of the situation.

[matt6715]

Not sure how anybody can listen to that and assume that it's somehow a mistake. The guy picked his words very carefully. "Pulled the trigger at the right time" how the hell would that even apply if his father was an ex-NBA player? You ever hear Dell Curry get referenced like that re: Steph?