Sacramento Kings Announcer Resigns After Tweeting 'All Lives Matter'

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Source: Kevork Djansezian / Getty

DeMarcus Cousins sent out a tweet on Sunday asking long-time Sacramento Kings announcer, Grant Napear, to share his feelings on the Black Lives Matter movement. His response was that of ignorance, which is presumably something Cousins knew beforehand and likely the whole reason he asked.

“Hey!!!! How are you? Thought you forgot about me,” Napear tweeted the former Kings baller. “Haven’t heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER…EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!”

As you can see from the all caps, it looks like Napear had been anxiously waiting all day to let everyone know he was racist, so he jumped at the opportunity once it finally came from Cousins. DeMarcus replied, “lol as expected,” and from there, Twitter did its thing.

Obviously, Napear received backlash for his response, which was seemingly the NBA star’s entire point. While DeMarcus Cousins was the star on an otherwise lackluster Kings team for nearly seven years, Napear ridiculed him endlessly during his time with the team. At the time, the announcer criticized the baller’s All-Star level production, even going as far as to describe him as a “dark cloud” that hung over the organization.

With that in mind, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that Cousins was baiting Grant here, knowing his response would garner some much-deserved backlash.

Following Napear’s “All Lives Matter” declaration, Kings legend Chris Webber also decided to weigh in on the situation, with Matt Barnes following close behind to call the announcer a “closet racist.”

The following day, Greg Napear issued an apology for his remarks.

“If it came across as dumb I apologize. That was not my intent,” the broadcaster tweeted. “That’s how I was raised. It has been engrained in me since I can remember. I’ve been doing more listening than talking the past few days. I believe the past few days will change this country for the better!”

Riiiiight….so anyway, Napear’s apology was too little too late, and his enthusiastic racism ended up costing him his job.

According to reports from ESPN, the Kings asked Napear to resign as the team’s play-by-play announcer. Local radio station, Sports 1140 KHTK—where he hosts a show with Kings player Doug Christie—also fired Napear on Tuesday for his remarks.

“The timing of Grant’s tweet was particularly insensitive,” the company that owns the radio station, Bonneville International, said in a statement per ESPN. “After reviewing the matter carefully, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with Grant.”

There’s little in this world more satisfying than seeing a bigot get got. Congratulations to DeMarcus Cousins for getting his revenge all these years later.

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