Last week, the roster for the men’s basketball team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo were finalized, and Kevin Love surprisingly made the cut. The last few years in Cleveland haven’t been that great for Love, so this was definitely an eye brow-raisers. This was also the reaction for Jalen Rose, who recently said that Love only made the Olympic team to be a “white token.
“Kevin Love is on the team because of tokenism,” Rose said. “Don’t be scared to make an all-Black team representing the United States of America. I’m disappointed by that.”
Rose cited Love’s play over the last few seasons, and believed that even Love himself was surprised to make the team. Now, Rose is issuing an apology on Instagram. He regrets the “white token” wording but firmly stands on his belief that Love shouldn’t have made the team. He feels that there was concern that there wasn’t a desire from others for an all-Black US Olympic team.
“If I feel like Kevin Love should make the team or not, I’m entitled to my opinion,” Rose said. “You don’t have to like my opinion, you don’t have to like me. There’s a lot of people trying to assassinate my character or whatever, but those people, some of them, have been doing to for like 30 years … that’s how it is when you have the nerve in a lot of peoples’ estimation to be outspoken.”
“Not that I believe that you deserve to make the team,” he said of Love. “I’m pretty sure when you got the call too you were like ‘Word?! I’m on the squad.’ I know how this works ya’ll. He looked down at his phone and was like, ‘Yo, they want me? They’re gonna ignore these Cleveland Cav lost tape years?’”
Rose went on to say that he didn’t want to disrespect the sport, with his original comments. In the end, though, many agreed with him that Love should not be on this US Olympic team.
Flip the page for Rose’s full apology on IG.
