Former NBA star and current ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose has finally sounded off on the controversy involving his wife, ESPN First Take host Molly Qerim, and LaVar Ball. Many blasted Ball for “inappropriate” comments made towards Qerim during an appearance on First Take and the Big Baller Brand patriarch was ultimately banned from future appearances on the network.
LaVar attempted to flip the script and blamed Qerim for overreacting — as did others — but now Jalen Rose is breaking his silence on the matter.
Rose addressed the incident during an Instagram Live story.
“Regardless of where you stand – you can feel that what he said was inappropriate. You can feel that she overreacted. However you feel, you’re entitled to your opinion,” Rose told his followers. “But you know what you’re not allowed to do? Is tell her how to feel. Molly talks to TMZ, and they ask her a question about ‘how do you feel about LaVar being banned?’ She clearly said ‘that’s above my pay grade, I don’t know anything about that.’ …. She and I didn’t send no texts, no emails, no overtures to get anybody banned from ESPN – the company that we work for and don’t own, fools.”
He continued: “Then it went to, ‘oh Molly, you got a black man banned from ESPN.’ Y’all know she’s married to a black husband, right? She’s covered the NFL, the NBA, college basketball, MMA… she’s been doing this for 15 years. She knows how to navigate. She knows how to take care of herself.
“Somebody pays her to talk about sports. She’s a vet. So this idea that she woke up that morning and like, ‘oh, I’m going to see what I can do to try to trap LaVar.’ It didn’t have nothing to do with his race, fools… If she felt some type of way about what he said, then she felt some type of way about what he said. And you know what? I’m riding with her.”
Now that everyone directly impacted from the incident has sounded off, let’s hope that everyone moves forward. After all, if the goal is to not give LaVar Ball a platform, consistently rehashing a past incident is an ineffective way to do that.
