Milwaukee Bucks guard Grayson Allen was involved in another scuffle Wednesday night, sending the Chicago Bulls announcers into a frenzy as they demanded retaliation.
Allen has owned the reputation as a dirty player since his days at Duke and the 27-year-old has done little to shed the label during his five seasons in the NBA. Wednesday night, Allen’s forearm shiver to Bulls star DeMar DeRozan gave fuel to his critics.
During the third quarter, Allen attempted to set a screen for his Milwaukee Bucks teammate and was shoved into DeRozan by Bulls forward Patrick Williams. Allen held out his forearm as he crashed into DeRozan, sending the Bulls All-Star to the ground. DeRozan jumped to his feet seemingly seeking revenge, but Allen was quickly surrounded by his teammates to defuse the situation. Bulls announcers Adam Amin and Stacey King, however, were less inclined to see Allen escape retribution.
“Oh come on Grayson Allen,” Amin said in disgust. “Listen, every time something like this happens, his go to default setting is to do something extra.”
“It’s a chump move, seriously,” King ranted. “Let me tell you something, somebody needs to give him a two-piece. I guarantee he’ll stop doing that. Somebody pop him upside his head a couple times, he’ll stop doing that because he’s getting away with this too much.”
“Just cause you got pushed, doesn’t give you carte blanche to do that,” Amin added. “And that’s why it’s frustrating to watch a talented player like Grayson Allen keep getting involved in stupid, dumb, dirty moments. He’s gonna keep doing it until he gets a forearm shiver to his face! Stacey, you know I rarely get upset about these things…but when you have this happen eight or nine times between college and the NBA over the last seven years, what more are people gonna think of you?”
Allen was pushed into DeRozan and the forearm did not look nearly as egregious as Amin and King made it out to be. Unfortunately for Allen, his reputation as a dirty player evades him the opportunity to be given any benefit of the doubt.
It’s one thing for Amin and King to question Allen’s intent, but it’s another to call for physical retaliation, stopping just short of putting a bounty on him. Amin and King did at least declare their bias during their rant, citing Allen’s history as a dirty player and his hard foul on Bulls guard Alex Caruso last season, but their reaction felt a little over the top, especially after officials reviewed the contact for a ridiculously long time and deemed it “incidental.”
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com