Brett Cates / IG – @brettglco
Shannon Sharpe and Ja Morant‘s dad, Tee, got into a heated altercation at the Laker game Friday night … with both sides needing to be separated before eventually making amends.
It all went down during the first half of the Lakers’ home matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies at Crypto.com Arena … when the focus shifted from the court to the crowd.
Memphis guard Dillon Brooks and the FS1 commentator — who had courtside seats for the game — had been jawing back and forth during the contest … when Dillon’s teammates Steven Adams and Morant inserted themselves into the picture.
Adams can be seen barking at Sharpe … as everyone else tries to restore some semblance of order. As the chaos ensues, Shannon and Tee got into a war of words, too.
In the video, Shannon appears to yell “I bet you won’t” at Tee multiple times as staffers, security and referees get between them.
Shannon was then escorted out of the seating area and into the tunnel.
Shannon Sharpe spent halftime in the tunnel with security before returning to his seat for the third quarter. He granted ESPN a brief interview explaining what happened with the Grizzlies on his way to his seat: pic.twitter.com/XZNw6sQhEG
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 21, 2023
@mcten
After the commotion, Shannon spoke to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin at halftime and said it all started after he told Brooks he couldn’t guard LeBron James.
“I said he was too small to guard LeBron. He said, ‘F*** me,'” Sharpe told Dave. “I said, ‘f*** you back.'”
Sharpe claims that’s when Brooks came after him … followed by Ja and his father, which led to him responding the way he did.
“They didn’t want this smoke,” said Shannon. “They do all this talking and jockeying, and I ain’t about that jockeying.”
“I wanted anything they had. Don’t let these fools fool you now.”
@garrettleight
The good news — it appears cooler heads prevailed … as Shannon and Tee were spotted dapping up one another later on in the night.