Kevin McHale was reminded of a valuable lesson on Tuesday night. Never assume that mic isn’t hot.
As TNT came out of a commercial during a game between the Philadelphia Sixers and Boston Celtics, the camera lingered on Sixers star Jimmy Butler having a discussion with a team assistant. Not realizing that they were back and unaware that his mic was on, McHale noted that someone, possibly the assistant in question, was of low value by his estimation.
TNT's Kevin McHale caught on the mic calling someone a "d—head" during tonight's Sixers-Celtics broadcast. pic.twitter.com/Oi0Cz8ZyJ2
— Rob Tornoe (@RobTornoe) February 13, 2019
“I used to get into it with him steady. He’s a dickhead. Yep. Yep. Yep. Hasn’t changed a bit.”
From there, the game started back up and so did the announce team, seemingly unaware of the NSFW snafu.
The former Boston Celtics forward is no stranger to spicy controversy. He famously clotheslined Kurt Rambis during a scoring attempt during Game 4 of the 1984 NBA Finals. At the time, you’d be hardpressed to find too many people outside of New England who didn’t think he was the dickhead, though that tough style was also made him so popular with hometown fans.
Some has hypothesized that McHale was referring to Butler since the two were both associated with the Minnesota Timberwolves for some time. However, their timeframes don’t overlap. McHale last coached for the T’Wolves in 2009 and Butler didn’t arrive until 2011.
UPDATE: McHale apologized during the 3rd quarter of the game for the slip-up.
McHale apologized for his comment in the 3rd quarter: "JJ and I were talking about a guy we knew, and I used a very unflattering, not nice term and it caught the air." https://t.co/FuXIxhTbis
— Rob Tornoe (@RobTornoe) February 13, 2019
