There was a sequence late in last night’s Sixers game when Joel Embiid went up for a block and probably didn’t have to. He came down awkwardly, and anytime Embiid comes down awkwardly, fan hearts typically fibrillate until he gets back up again.

Here’s the sequence in question:

I didn’t notice it at the time, but color commentator Alaa Abdelnaby made the following comment at the end of the video clip, transcribed by Alex Conrad at the Australian website news.au.com:

“Jo Jo just not going to give up the easy two,” Abdelnaby said.

“I just worry about when he falls. No offence to Giddey, I could care less.

“But this guy, you don’t want to see him fall awkwardly because you worry as a Sixers fan.”

“Giddey” is Josh Giddey, the Thunder rookie involved in the play. He’s an Aussie, drafted 6th overall this year.

The “no offense” comment apparently drew some heat nationally, and in Australia, with a sampling of the responses looking like this:


https://twitter.com/AgentMoldovan/status/1452466546463297537?s=20

It seems like a throwaway comment, but I can understand why people would be upset. Alaa isn’t outright saying “fuck this guy, nobody cares,” but in the process of showing concern for the superstar on the team he covers, the result is some lopsided and biased commentary. This isn’t a cancel-worthy sequence, but you have to be at least somewhat sensitive when stuff like this happens. All you gotta do is say “hopefully Giddey is alright,” or whatever. Something like that, then you don’t have Twitter coming for you.

My guess is he issues some sort of apology.