Sixers

Kevin Harlan vs. Sixers Public Relations

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 18th, 2018 · 1:05 PM EDT

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This is the hottest feud of the year, definitely hotter than Khabib vs. McGregor.

Backstory:

If you listened to the national broadcast of the Sixers game on Tuesday, you heard play-by-play guy Kevin Harlan pronounce “Dario Saric” in this manner:

“duh-REE-oh” 

That resulted in some head-scratching and complaining on Twitter, because that’s not how you pronounce Dario’s name, right?

But Harlan defended himself and blamed the alleged error on a cheat sheet provided by the Sixers’ public relations staff, which he later furnished as proof in a sideways image shared on Twitter Thursday morning:

Tune in at 11:30 when @975Middays is joined by the great @Kevinharlan! He was on the call for the Sixers-Celtics game and will also be on the call tonight against the Bulls! Don't miss it

— 97.5 The Fanatic (@975TheFanatic) October 18, 2018

https://twitter.com/Kevinharlan/status/1052943746298535936

The misaligned picture does indeed say (dah-RIO) on it, so one would assume Harlan is only following team instructions on how to pronounce the power forward’s first name. As per standard rules of writing out pronunciations, you would put the emphasis on the syllable written in capital letters.

Examples:

• the former Flyer would be Eric day-zhar-DAN, not Eric day-ZHAR-dan
• the current Eagle would be Alshon JEFF-ery, not Alshon jeff-ERY
• the current Eagle would be Tim JER-nuh-genn, not Tim jer-NUH-genn

Harlan doubled down on his pronunciation during a Thursday appearance with Jason Myrtetus and the Cuz on 97.5 the Fanatic, which you can listen to after the jump:

I cut it off when Gargano asked Harlan about the Eagles, but the Cuz does bring up a valid point: Harlan did say “DARR-ee-oh” last season and it’s not like he was calling his first Sixers game this week.

We’ll see what Sixers’ PR has to say about this tonight. I’ll have to corner them and force out some real answers like a real journalist. It’s very important to get to the bottom of this.