Clippers Announcers Suspended for Comments About Iranian Born Basketball Player

Let me get this straight. The feds knew about the Ft. Hood Terrorist and his Islamic hate speech months in advance of him killing 13 soldiers, and failed to act out of political correctness, but the LA Clippers can act within days of this? Blah. Who watches the NBA anyway?


Details about how the suspensions came about below the video.

Mike Smith: "Look who's in."

Ralph Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"

Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA." (Smith pronounced Iranian as "Eye-ranian.")

Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA," repeating Smith's mispronunciation.

Smith: "He's the only one."

Lawler: "He's from Iran?"

Smith: "I guess so."

Lawler: "That Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "The real Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "Wow. Haddadi - that's H-A-D-D-A-D-I."

Smith: "You're sure it's not Borat's older brother?"

Smith: "If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I'm going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part."

Lawler: "Here's Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball."




Here's the interesting part. The suspensions came about because of the complaints of one viewer. Yeah. You guessed it.

Details about that single source have emerged. Clipper season ticket holder Arya Towfighi was watching the game with his young son in the room when the brief back-and-forth between Lawler and Smith took place.

The Boston born Towfighi wanted to replay the comment but ushered his son out of the room before doing so. "I didn't want my son to hear that," Towfighi said. He then proceeded to email the LA Times, the Clippers and Fox Sports executives.

Cyrus Hadavi, a member of the Alliance of Iranian Americans in L.A., agrees saying he was left "kind of speechless. In this day and age, why would someone say something like this? Were they trying to offend a whole nation?"

Dudes. Seriously. Go fark yourselves.