ESPN suspended regular Around The Horn panelist Bob Ryan over comments he made over current NBA analyst and former Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson earlier this month, according to a report from Complex.
Ryan made the comments on Dan LeBatard’s radio show, and the remarks he made were as follows:
“I am on record, thank God, publicly saying two years ago, I looked at the NBA, I looked at the rosters and what was going on, and said, ‘The most talented team one through eight, at least, in the NBA is the Golden State Warriors. They’re doing okay, but I know that they can do better. I know if they had a real coach, not some phony, Bible-pounding phony that Mark Jackson is, when he isn’t even a legitimate Bible pounder, I know that they’ll be better off.’ I didn’t know that it would be Steve Kerr. I didn’t know that it would be Luke Walton. I didn’t know WHO it would be, but I knew that he was out there, and there were plenty of them out there that could make them a better team, yes.”
Ryan has since returned, but told The Big Lead that his comments were an “intemperate, foolish outburst that I regret. I was treated very nicely by the company, and have told them that I will not do anything like this again to be out of their good graces.”
Though Ryan has returned, ESPN did the right thing. Religion is a sensitive subject and Jackson takes his faith seriously enough that it might have played a role in his being fired by Golden State. He never moved his family to the San Francisco Bay Area because he did not want to be far from his church in his Los Angeles, which caused slight animosity between himself and the front office on top of the team’s slow progress under his watch.
Either way, it all appears to be in the past now, so hopefully all parties can move on from it.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
