A Shake-Up in the Sports World

      As the NBA season starts its preseason games, commotion news has transpired in the past weeks tailoring the audience to channel in or more than what’s happening on the court.

Long time ESPN anchor Sage Steele has been suspended off the air as it has surfaced some very obscene, controversial opinions. Sage Steele went on Jay Cutler’s ‘Uncut’ and made controversial comments about the vaccine mandate ESPN is enforcing, calling the regulation “sick” and “scary to me in many ways”. ESPN has not fired her and even issued a statement saying” At ESPN, we embrace different points of view — dialogue and discussion make this place great,” the network said in a statement. “That said, we expect that those points of view be expressed respectfully, in a manner consistent with our values, and in line with our internal policies.” She also made comments about female reporters about how they present themselves in a male-dominated industry. “When you dress like that, I’m not saying you deserve the gross comments, but you know what you’re doing when you’re putting that outfit on, too,” The biggest takeaway from the night was her comments on the 44th president and the census. Steele, who is also African-American and Irish/Italian, began discussing racial identity and made a defense to how Obama chooses to say he is black versus bi-racial, stating “think that’s fascinating considering his Black dad was nowhere to be found but his white mom and grandma raised him.”
Currently, Miss Steele has issued an apology for her comments and is still sidelined by ESPN.

In player news, Kyrie Irving is still standing strong in his stance that he is against the vaccine. It is required for all players, especially under the New York guidelines, to have at least one dosage of the COVID-19 vaccination. Irving has missed two consecutive days of practice. It was just announced that for the preseason game Friday ( October 8th) against the Bucks that he will not be playing, making this the first home game missed of potentially many. The Nets are losing hope that Irving will get vaccinated, and players are already looking at shifting the team dynamics without Kyrie. Kyrie is currently listed as an “ineligible player” for home games/practices. Players of this list also lose a percentage of their salary for every game missed. If he misses all 41 home games, he could take a pay cut of an estimated 15 million. Kyrie will be able to play road games in New York and San Francisco as long as his COVID test results come back negative.

2 time NBA champion and Laker Legend, Pau Gasol has announced his retirement ending an exceptional career in the USA and internationally for over two decades being with 5 USA NBA teams in the span(the bucks, Lakers, Grizzlies, and Spurs, and Lakers). He was signed to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2019 but never got to play.  Pau Gasol also won a world championship with Spain in 2006 and 3 European titles in 2015,2011 and 2009.

The Lakers announced shortly after Gasol’s retirement announcement they will retire his number 16 jersey.
Gasol retires and is one of 10 players to have a record of 20,000+ points, 10,000+ rebounds, and 1,000+ blocks since 1980.