Stan Van Gundy has never been shy about bringing politics into basketball broadcasts. So it wasn’t exactly surprising when he had some thoughts after his broadcast partner referred to Victor Wembanyama as an “alien” during Saturday night’s Spurs-Thunder game on Amazon Prime Video.
During the fourth quarter, play-by-play announcer Michael Grady called the nickname fitting for the 7-foot-4 phenomenon who routinely does things on a basketball court that don’t look real.
Van Gundy immediately used that as a jumping-off point to caution him.
“The only thing is, in the current political environment, you gotta watch that word, Michael Grady,” Van Gundy said. “They deport those. We do not want Victor Wembanyama deported. Let’s go with a different nickname.”
The “alien” nickname has been used very liberally to describe Wembanyama since before he even entered the NBA. And it’s not just Grady; countless others in the business have repeatedly called the Frenchman an “alien” because Wembanyama genuinely does things that don’t seem physically possible, whether he’s shooting over defenders from 30 feet, blocking shots at the rim while simultaneously contesting perimeter jumpers, or moving laterally like a guard despite being nearly seven-and-a-half feet tall.
The Spurs’ star isn’t facing immigration questions, and Van Gundy wasn’t suggesting otherwise. The longtime NBA analyst and former head coach is a staunch progressive and longtime critic of Donald Trump. He’s also publicly criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health secretary appointee, as a “clown” who “went off the rails.”
Reactions to that kind of thing tend to follow a familiar script. Some viewers appreciate the candor. Others want their NBA games free of anything that sounds remotely political. Those preferences, conveniently, often depend on whether they agree with the sentiment being expressed.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.