JJ Redick doesn’t believe LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are championship contenders and Shannon Sharpe didn’t appear to like his reasoning.
Tuesday morning on ESPN, First Take asked whether the ninth-seed Lakers are a “legitimate threat in the west” after defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder 116-104 Monday night. According to Redick, Oklahoma City wasn’t any sort of statement win for the Lakers, offering the context that the Thunder were playing on a back-to-back and had a brutal first half shooting the ball. The context prompted Sharpe to blast Redick for always “contextualizing” rather than taking a sort of macro view of the topic for entertainment purposes.
Here’s the segment Redick was apologizing for pic.twitter.com/MS9tGBQIId
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“That wasn’t the question,” Sharpe fired back at Redick. “Why do people make all these concessions? ‘It was a tough back-to-back. It was this, it was that.’ You make concessions.”
“I’m not making concessions,” Redick interjected. “I’m contextualizing the loss last night, Shannon.”
“I know, you do a great job of contextualizing,” Sharpe said, seemingly perturbed by Redick. “But let me speak! The problem that I have with you and others is that you make concessions for every other team in the West not named the Lakers.”
Redick can certainly be a stickler when it comes to First Take topics. But in this case, he gave the opinion that the Lakers are not a legitimate threat and he backed it up with supporting evidence to explain his reasoning. Redick wasn’t trying to skirt the question as Sharpe implied. But Redick still felt the need to apologize later in the show.
“I apologize for interrupting you in the A-block,” Redick said before bringing a little levity to the situation. “You’re in Dallas, remotely in your Brioni suit, alright? I would let you talk, the only reason…I felt like you were putting words in my mouth, so I wanted to clarify before you did your full point. And I apologize for interrupting. It’s not a very becoming behavior of mine.”
Sharpe quickly said, “We’re good,” seemingly not concerned about what happened in a previous segment. Since recently returning to First Take after a few months off, this is the second time that Redick found himself in a tense discussion with Sharpe on the show.
Last month, Sharpe questioned Redick’s ability to understand the show. This week, Sharpe questioned Redick’s desire to contextualize every topic. It hasn’t reached the level of Sharpe vs Bayless in some of their bouts on Undisputed, but Redick vs Sharpe is definitely becoming a segment to watch if you’re interested in drama on First Take.
