After noticing that Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan were going back and forth with a courtside fan, Raptors commentators Matt Devlin and Leo Rautins asked Twitter to identify him. Twitter responded by telling them he was rapper Wale, who the commentators took turns mocking, referring to him as an unknown local rapper, as someone less famous than Drake (same record label IIRC), and pronouncing his name as 'whale', 'wall', and 'walleye'. Minutes later Wale marched up to the second-level commentary booth. Seeing him coming, Devlin and Rautins announced that the rapper was coming up to say hi and might join them in the booth. Wale could be heard over the broadcast telling them to watch their mouths and was eventually pulled away. Wale may have been ejected at that point since he didn't return to courtside for the fourth quarter.
After Wale came up to 'say hi' neither Devlin nor Rautins mentioned him again and, frankly, ended their asides and banter and focused on the game. Thanks, Wale.
[video=youtube;9sgWb6bDjiU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9sgWb6bDjiU[/video]
http://www.nba.com/raptors/video/2013/02/19/NBAWEB130219DEVLINONWALE-2390982 [video=youtube;9_Bi2nwvB5I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9_Bi2nwvB5I[/video]
Hopefully this is a bit of a kick in the pants for both Devlin and Rautins. Their "friendly banter" was out of control irritating tonight.
haha, I don't know how well known he is but I listen to Wale and he's okay. Kinda weird for two basketball analysts to just suddenly talk shit about him though.
He's actually pretty well known and anything but "local". This is what happens when older white men are calling a game where the culture and atmosphere couldn't be more different then them if was possible. Kinda' just not in touch with the players.
Devlin said that he explained their comments to Wale by saying "we're not hip" and "we were making fun of ourselves for not knowing who he was"...
Its so unlike a rapper to take some friendly ribbing serious and wanna turn it into a brawl. Even though the commentary team totally deserved it for being poor commentaries but it wouldnt be a raptors game without it.
I dont know, Matt gives Wale a wave like "your not worth my time". Wale is acting like Kanye West after being called gay fish.